Black Light
by The Ocean Is My Inkwell
Summary: Tara is the half-Titan bad girl. A clash with an even deadlier enemy gangster may soon reform her, but if she fails, her love will die...and World War III may break loose. T for brief language. Thalia, Percabeth, OC/OC.
1. Chapter 1: A Word Gone Wrong

**A/N: Heya, all! This is my newest PJO fanfic up. I actually posted it about a year ago under the same title, but then I trashed that one and totally rewrote the story, including the plot line. If some of my older fans are reading this right now, you'll probably see the difference right away.**

**Disclaimer: Really, is this necessary? This is why we write _fanfiction_. Well, *sighs* for the picky people out there, only an idiot would think I own PJO. ;D**

**Enjoy!**Chapter 1: A Word Gone Wrong

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My tattered leather jacket was a pitiful excuse of a protection against the fangs of the wind. The snow was swirling around me in a howling, angry mass of stinging needles. I wondered sarcastically to myself how people could call snow pretty when it was so cruel to the homeless.

I tugged the jacket closer around me with a harsh jerk, but it was more out of nasty habit and an ill temper than out of discomfort. I'd been running the streets for half my life now, and I'd learned a long time ago that chattering your teeth and crying your eyes out wouldn't change the heartless weather. Besides, I had a lot more to worry about than catching a cold.

"Going somewhere, Tara Wellington?"

Like that.

I raised my head by the slightest degree and glared at him sullenly. "I am. And you're in my way."

The enragingly tall, handsome boy with dirty blond hair and evil fiery eyes folded his arms coolly and laughed. "Naw, I'd say you're in _my_ way."

I cast him a glance of pure hate. "Aiden," I growled, "you know what I mean. Now move."

He laughed even harder, making the blood boil in my veins. "After I saved your worthless life, this is how you talk to me?"

I threw back my head defiantly. "That's a bloody lie," I snarled. My mouth was foul, but I didn't care when I was in a bad temper. "You know the truth. Jack saved me. _Not you_."

"Oh ho ho, now look at that!" he chuckled with a feigned gasp of astonishment. "Why, I think I've been too good to you."

I glared daggers at him with my good eye. "Oh, yes, you've been too good to me," I retorted. "After all, I've only lost half me eyesight to you. After all, I've only escaped death three times from you. After all, you've only planned my downfall all your life."

He came closer and stroked my cheek. "Come on, sweetheart," he drawled, "no ill feelings, okay?"

I slapped away his hand. "Don't you dare touch me, you snake. I want you to answer me this: Why did you leave the Black Hearts, you traitor?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I decided they wield guns better over at the Ring of Death."

I laughed sarcastically. "Coward. Guns are for cowards. Only the true hearts like us use daggers."

His eyes narrowed. "Cowards hide behind weapons. Want to fight me fist to fist and show me what you got?" he taunted.

"That's no problem, cobra," I flung back. "I'll show you what I got."

We began to circle each other, moving back and forth tentatively across the crunching snow. He was the first to make a lunge at me, but I loosened my muscles and ducked easily. I came back up, calling up my spirits.

I threw the next punch at lightning speed, and with a sort of dark thrill I heard the solid _thwack_ made by the impact of my fist against his jaw. But he had fast reflexes, too, and with a roar of rage, he sprang at me again. I dropped down and rolled in the snow a few feet away from him; then I flew directly at his head with a flying kick. He whipped around and caught my ankle, toppling me to the ground from midair. Undaunted, I wrenched myself from his grasp and lashed out blindly with a balled fist. I did a mental victory dance at the sound of his cheekbone receiving the punch.

Then suddenly he started raining down blows on me. I was at a disadvantage, since I was flat on my back in the snow. But life had also taught me that Pain was the friend of Survival, and with only a slight grimace, I rolled away again and latched around his foot, bringing him down hard. He lunged for me yet again, but I gave him a solid, heartfelt kick in the face and rolled away at the first chance as he yelled in pain. Then I was back on my feet, goading him for more.

He threw me to the ground, but with a grunt of effort, I heaved him off and threw him back into the snow instead. We exchanged insults and blows at random, usually unable to block each other's moves, but taking them to the best of our strength. This was not a dodge game, but a marathon to the death.

It happened all too fast to be possible. One moment I was throwing him a kick, and the next moment I was down on the ground on my back, winded and breathing hard, pinned down beneath his burly hands. He laid the edge of a glinting knife against my neck.

"As you can see, I didn't forget my old knife from my time with the Black Hearts," he informed me with a twisted smile.

I grunted loudly, but he had me down good this time. I spat at him. "'Cowards hide behind weapons'," I quoted to his face. "What happened to that?"

He laughed. "Sometimes I have to give up a little courage here and there to get what I want, don't you think? It's far more convenient."

"Coward," I flung at him again. "Why don't you go pick a fight with Jack? Man to man. Leader to leader. Instead, you go and try to kick the blood out of a lesser member."

"A girl, you mean?" he mused, twisting the knife a bit to remind me of its presence--and of his clear intention.

"Don't you dare call me that," I wheezed, my voice dangerously low. "I'm not in my gang for nothing."

"Neither am I," he whispered, shaking his head and leaning closer to my face until I could smell the cold mint on his breath. "I'm not leader of the Ring of Death for nothing, Tara."

"The name's T!" I yelled. "Don't you dare call me Tara!"

He ignored my indignation. Suddenly he sheathed his dagger, still keeping me in check beneath the weight of his knee on my chest. "You know what, Tara? You're absolutely right. Cowards _do_ hide behind weapons."

I stared at him, not comprehending.

"But the brave?" he said. "They fight with their hands." In one swift movement, he had bared his heavily veined wrists and wrapped his fingers around my throat. "Maybe a strangling would be much more heroic--and satisfying."

"You're a bloody coward to torture your chosen victim."

"Sorry, Tara. The dead can't be choosers." He began to put the pressure on my neck.

"Lay off her, Aiden."

I stiffened. Jack?

Aiden didn't let go of me just yet. Cautiously, he lifted his gaze. "Stay out of this, Avalon."

I heard Jack's footsteps quickly approaching. "I decide what I stay out of and what I don't," he said calmly.

"You heard me!" Aiden snarled. "I said stay out of this!"

"Why don't you just up and kill me? I'm the leader of the Black Hearts, not her."

I struggled to cry out, but my breathing was becoming ragged and heavy, and I was in no position to say anything.

"I don't want your life, Avalon. It's worth nothing to me. I want hers."

"What for? What did she ever do to you?"

Aiden's voice was choked with fury. "She rejected me, _that's_ what."

"You're a jerk if you can't get over that, Aiden."

"Listen, I said stay out of this!" Aiden suddenly lashed out. His hands started to tighten around my throat again.

"You're not the only one who knows how to shoot a gun, Aiden. Let her go right now."

His hands stopped, but the pressure was still agonizing. I felt like I would pass out any minute now.

The hammer of Jack's revolver clicked ominously. "I said _now_."

A sudden, low chuckle erupted from my enemy. "I'm going to get you for this, Avalon. Someday. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe a decade from now. But someday."

The pressure was abruptly released. Before either of us could react, he was gone.

Jack pocketed his gun and ran to me. "T, what the heck happened?"

I coughed and rubbed my sore neck gingerly. "A few words and a few blows...turned out bad," I croaked.

He swore under his breath at the sight of my mottled neck already beginning to bruise. "I'm really going to get Aiden for this," he muttered. "I mean it." Solicitously he raised my head and propped me up on my knee, then wiped the blood from my face and gave me a drink from his personal army canteen which he'd picked up in a junkyard. I took deep, grateful gulps and let my tense body finally loosen.

"T, I came to tell you something."

I looked up at him.

"I'm going to get you out of this pit of hell, T. Away from him. Away from everybody else. We're going to America."

I stared at him, hardly able to express my surprise in my sudden, sheer weariness. "What?"

He shook his head slowly. "London ain't the place for you, T. Not for you and me. I've got to get you away from him."

I struggled to sit up, but found that the pains in my body were too intense to simply allow that. I fell back against his knee again and set my jaw. "I've got nothing to fear from him."

Jack frowned. "I didn't think you'd say that, considering the happenings of today."

"Forget what happened today," I growled impatiently. "What I got today was pure Aiden Prowse. It was nothing compared to what he did to me afore."

Jack fell silent. "But he tried to kill you this time."

"And the freaking stars I would rather have died!" I exclaimed. "What's death to me, compared to what he did to me in the past?"

He swallowed. The muscles in his neck were flexing in and out as he set and reset his jaw while he gazed down silently at me. His black eyes flashed angrily all of a sudden, in that same abrupt and tempestuous manner which he and I shared as if we were siblings. "I know," he said finally, his voice low. "Your eye."

I remembered that all too well.

T~T~T~T~T

_"T?"_

_I groaned and sat up groggily against the table, where I'd been dozing seated backwards on a rickety chair. I hardly got enough sleep these days._

_Aiden slid onto the empty table across from me and reclined on his elbow. My eyes suddenly flew open when I realized from his breath how close our faces were. "Yeah?" I said warily, and a tad impatiently. "What?"_

_He laughed and flipped his blond hair out of his dark fiery brown eyes. He had that way about him, laughing at everyone and everything. But it wasn't the kind of laughter that induced you to laugh with him. "I've been thinking a lot," he began. "Thinking a lot about you."_

_I gasped; then my eyes narrowed. How dare he be so audacious! "Quit thinking of me as a girl!" I growled. "I don't want none of your stupid advances, get it?"_

_"Oh, yeah, I got it," he chuckled, shaking his head slowly. "I got it a long time ago. But this time, you're going to get it."_

_I shot up erect in my chair, my muscles automatically tensing; I was no longer leaning carelessly on the table. I couldn't take my chances. Furtively my hand found its way to the dagger strapped to my back beneath my leather jacket. "Don't you even dare."_

_"Dare what?" The edge of his dagger was suddenly pressed urgently against my neck. My eyes widened._

_I started to breathe more quickly. "Jack and the others'll be here any minute now."_

_"Uh-uh, they won't." He smiled. "I've already made a few...arrangements to keep them busy."_

_"Viper!" I snarled._

_He laughed softly. Then he grabbed me firmly by the back of my neck and pressed his lips hard against mine._

_I shrieked and pushed him away, ignoring the slicing pain as the edge of his knife just barely grazed my throat. I whipped out my dagger. I was on my feet now, breathing heavily and slowly backing away._

_He let out a long, slow chuckle. "Defiant as ever, Tara?"_

_"The name's T," I hissed._

_He moved with lightning speed. Before I could see what was happening, he had parried my automatic blow with his own knife. He grabbed my wrist, but I resisted and nearly threw him off me, until he hooked a foot behind my knee and brought me down hard. I scrambled for my dagger again and rolled half on my back and half on my elbow, shooting out at him as he came down at me again. I missed his knife by a fraction of a second, and the next thing I knew, a searing pain lashed across the side of my face. My curse turned into a strangled scream._

T~T~T~T~T

I sighed heavily. "You saved me again that time, Jack."

He smiled lopsidedly at me. His smile soon turned bitter. "Yeah, but I didn't save you when he got your finger."

"Oh, heck, Jack, stop it," I said. "You did what you could. What's done is done. I just...I just feel indebted to you because...because of that first time you found me."

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**A/N: As you can see, there will be a couple of flashbacks coming up in the following chapters to come. That's how T's story unfolds. Oh, and some of you have a favorite PJO character in Chapter 2!**

**Oh, and Aiden is not just a mortal. Can you guess his Greek parent?**

**Please review!**


	2. Chapter 2: Call Me T

**A/N: And...an immediate update! Haha, more like five seconds later. See? I told you there'd be a couple of flashbacks coming up through the story.**

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Chapter 2: Call Me T

_My feet must have been both muddy and bloody by the time I had hauled myself round the dark and shadowy corner and collapsed in the slimy gutter. My arms and shins were caked in a thick rime of week-old dirt picked up from the highways and the back roads--and the ditches I had slept in._

_My body was on fire. The blood in my veins ran like flames, coursing through my heart and face in one fevered flush. I shook my head repeatedly in an attempt to clear my mind, but I found I could hardly think for the pain and confusion of my fever. Where was I? What was that horrid stench? I tasted blood on my lips; I realized it was my own, trickling down from my grazed temple._

_I must have lain there for hours. Time passed by in a flurry, hardly stopping to pick me up in its arms and carry me with it to safety. I was left there, panting and sweating, in the mire of the gutter._

_Footsteps suddenly roused me from my stupor. The hard toe of a shoe prodded me not too gently on my side, and at the sudden pain of my sore arm, my eyes flew open._

_His face was indistinct; I could hardly focus on one part of it. My first impression was the command of his voice. "Who are you?"_

_I forced my eyes to open wider and licked my parched lips. "I am Tara. Who are you?"_

_Without warning, he dropped down on his knees beside me and lifted my head on his arm. "That don't matter," he muttered in reply. "What happened to you? Y'all right?"_

_I shook my head weakly. "Could you--could you take me somewhere? I...I think I'm bleeding."_

_"Ye are," he said matter-of-factly. He swept me up without ceremony and bore me deeper into the shadows of the alley. In less than a minute, he turned off to the side and pounded up a rickety staircase; he paused, and then he turned a nearby knob with a creak._

_His entrance into some dimly lit room was immediately heralded by a host of voices. "Jack! Where ye been?" "What ye got there, Jack?" "Ain't there food?"_

_He said nothing and simply carried me to a corner of the tiny, dingy room, where he set me down on a musty pile of blankets. He jerked up the hem of my blood-drenched pant leg and bared my ankle._

_"Bitten by a snake," he muttered, more to himself as a sort of curse than as a piece of intelligence to me._

_"Mikey! Where's that water we saved from dinner?"_

_His call was answered by a shuffling of feet, and a teenage blue-eyed boy set down a large bucket full of water spilling over and slopping down the sides. I personally doubted if a dip in there would make me any cleaner than I was now, but I had neither breath nor heart to complain. Jack--for I assumed that was his name--rummaged around for a rag, dipped it in the water, and proceeded to swab my puncture wound._

_"How long ago d'you suppose you got bit?" he asked me._

_I swallowed and tried to shake my head clear. "I don't remember. Probably sunset."_

_He sucked in his breath. "Impossible."_

_I raised my head slightly at his exclamation. "What?"_

_"There's clearly poison in that bite. You can't have gotten it hours ago, or you'd be dead by now."_

_I sighed and lay back down again. I could hardly comprehend his words._

_"Aiden? Aiden!"_

_Jack's impatient voice was followed by a hurried shuffle and a series of low mutterings between the two. My vision began to blur, and though I saw two faces, I could no longer distinguish which was which._

_"Aiden, help me get the poison out."_

_The voices continued, even lower and more indistinct, and I ws vaguely aware of a strip of cloth tied tightly above my ankle and someone suddenly bending down and sucking the fluid out._

_I hissed and moaned, the sweat breaking out on my forehead. A hand reached out and smoothed my hair. I grunted. Seeing that I was near passing out, Jack said nothing, but simply finished up cleaning my wound and bound it tightly with a drier strip of cloth._

_He laid a hand on my forehead. "You're burning, that's for sure," he said. "If you'd only come a few more meters down the alley, you would have seen our house here."_

_His voice was gruff, but not unkind. I opened my eyes again and studied him--his dark hair, his deep voice, his cap perched carelessly on his head, his threadbare jacket and pants. There was something in his near-black eyes that did not match. The other one, the one called Aiden, had messy dirty blond hair falling over his eyes. The part of his face that was not obscured by shadows and tendrils of hair was tanned and held a pair of intensely bright, fiery brown eyes._

_I felt sleep coming over my quickly. With an indistinct murmur, I closed my eyes again and fell into a fitful slumber._

_T~T~T~T~T_

_Voices awoke me with a start. I had completely forgotten about my sore joints and my aching ankle, and only when I sat up with a hurried jerk did I remember them._

_I saw shadowy figures hunched over a low, broken table on the opposite side of the room, accompanied by the clink of coins and the shuffle of paper money. I wondered what on earth this group of boys could be doing. Were they playing some game? Or were they counting money?_

_"You hungry?"_

_I gasped in surprise at Jack's startling voice behind me. It turned out that he had been sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall next to me the whole time, apparently watching me in my sleep._

_I nodded._

_Wordlessly, he reached into some unfathomable space behind him and plucked out something wrapped up in a sheet of newspaper. I took it gratefully--it was a relatively fresh loaf of bread, still warm, and definitely better smelling than anything else I had eaten in the past five days. With another nod of thanks, I dug in._

_"So," he said, as he observed me nearing the end of my meal, "how old are you?"_

_I paused. "Thirteen."_

_He nodded. "Where're you from?"_

_I shrugged. "Nowhere much. Small town outside the city."_

_"No wonder you lost your way around London," he concluded, not exactly in a condescending tone._

_I looked up suddenly. "Who are you exactly, anyway?" I demanded. "I don't recall that you told me your name before."_

_His lips twisted into something between a frown and a smile. "I'm Jack...Avalon," he replied. It must have been ages since the last time he had pronounced his last name, for him to nearly forget it._

_"Well then, I'm Tara Wellington, if it comes to proffering last names," I replied grudgingly. "But don't you go calling me Tara or Miss Wellington. I'm no Wellington nomore."_

_He raised a brow in my direction. "A runaway?"_

_I lowered my gaze. "That's none of your business," I muttered at my foot._

_Suddenly he laughed. The sound of it so surprised me that I jerked my head up again. "I've heard that story way too many times to be intimidated. Look. All the boys here are runaways, too."_

_I stared at him in shock._

_"Well?" he prompted me. "Why'd you run away, then?"_

_I scowled at my toe. "Let's just say I'm not appreciated anymore."_

_He slowly began to shake his head. "Nah, that ain't the reason. Come on, you can't fool the likes of me."_

_Again, I was even more surprised than I was before at his discernment. "All right, all right!" I conceded. "So, the real reason is, I want to know who my dad is. And let's say my mom doesn't want to tell me. And that causes huge problems."_

_"Now why in the name of Avalon wouldn't she tell you?" Jack said, his laughter abating._

_I shrugged. "Don't ask me. She's a very mysterious and closed woman. Hardly fit to be the mother of someone the likes of me. I like transparency."_

_Jack looked hard at me. "I'm downright surprised you ain't grateful you even had a mother at all," he said, and sighed as he turned away. "I never had un."_

If only you knew my mother, _I thought. I said nothing, but instead pretended to be busy filliping a speck of dust from my ratty denim jacket._

_"Aw, forget it," Jack finally said. "I just wanted to say, don't stick around here too long. You better get a headstart tomorrow if you can, wherever you're going."_

_My finger came to a sudden halt in its activity. Again I said nothing, but this time it was a less resentful and more pleading kind of silence. "I--I don't know where I'll go."_

_"There's jobs a-plenty for the likes of you," he replied nonchalantly._

_"I know, but..." I drifted off, unable to say more._

_His voice was flat. "You want to stay."_

_I swallowed hard. I nodded._

_Just as I was quickly getting to know him, Jack was downright honest. "In case you haven't noticed, all my kids here are boys."_

_"Well, what do you do here, anyway?" I demanded, looking up at him for the briefest moment before returning my eyes to my hands again._

_Jack whistled, long and hard. "You don't know?"_

_"Man, I'm not a regular Londoner!" I burst out, chafing at my own ignorance and at the same time burning to know._

_He swept a long arm in the direction of the teenage boys huddled round the table at the other end. "Welcome to the Black Hearts."_

_I gasped. Now I remembered. "You--you're the gang in the newspapers."_

_"We ain't in the newspapers for nothing," Jack bristled. "So you have heard of us, after all."_

_I nodded mutely._

_"Well?" said Jack. "Are you meaning to stay or not?"_

_"I still want to come," I said obstinately. My mother always said I was as strong-willed as my (unknown) father, but even now, I was flabbergasted at my own daring._

_"You're really asking for it," he said grimly. "For starters, we don't want no sissies dragging us down. We're all men here, and the best trained of them."_

_"I am not a sissy," I said, my voice sinking dangerously low._

_"You got to prove it."_

_I eyed him hard. He was dead serious. And so was I. "Give me a knife."_

_"What?"_

_"You heard me. I said give me a knife."_

_He handed one to me from the inside of his boot._

_I didn't need any instruction on how to use a knife. I'd wielded too many before--and gotten warnings from the constable--to fear the glinting edge of the blade anymore. I whipped it out of its leather sheath, and in one flash I had seized my thick, matted mahogany waves in one hand and sliced them off at the nape._

_Jack's mouth was wide open._

_Silently I slammed the knife back into the sheath and handed it over to him. He took it as if in a daze, repeatedly glancing back and forth from the pile of wickedly dark brown hair on the floor to my flashing green eyes._

_He stood, and I followed suit. We were eye to eye now--I was tall for thirteen, just a few centimeters below him--and we were looking hard at each other._

_He reached out a hand. I took it._

_"Call me T," I said._

T~T~T~T~T

"Saved you? Aw, T, that was nothing."

"But you've saved my life so many times already, even on that first day!" I insisted. "Or...at least...I think so."

Jack looked puzzled. "What d'you mean?"

"Aiden said--" I stopped.

Jack lifted my chin and turned my face toward him. "What did he say?"

"He said he saved my life from the snake poison, not you." I gulped and added hastily, "I told him what I thought--that it was a bloody lie."

"It's the bloody truth," Jack said morosely.

I flew upright, even as every inch of my body was screaming at me to lie down again. "What?"

"Yeah, sure, I carried you to the house," explained Jack. "But it was Aiden who saw you down there from the window and came to tell me. And later, when we were working on your leg, he was the one who sucked out the poisoned blood."

The color drained from my tanned face. "Aiden? He...he saved my life?"

Jack nodded. "I didn't know a thing about those kinds of poisons. He said he did."

"He saved my life, but three times after that he tried to take it away," I whispered fiercely.

"Yes," Jack conceded, after a pause.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

We whirled at the voice. I caught a flash of silver and a crunching of feet in the snow as somebody ran by. I looked at Jack and mouthed, "Who's that?" He shrugged and shook his head. Slowly he helped me up to my feet, at the same time reaching into the inside of his boot for his long dagger. We tiptoed across the slush of the alley and pressed ourselves against the nearest wall, breathing quickly and silently. I peered round the corner to see another flash of silver.

The sudden surprise of her face, paired with the aching bruises all over my body, made my knees buckle, and I tumbled facedown into the snow with a strangled cry and a sickening crunch of ice, as well as a ringing crash as a nearby trash can skittered away. Jack swore under his breath and grabbed my arm, but the damage had already been done.

The footsteps stopped. "Hello?" said the voice again. Then I heard the person coming back across the snow toward us.

Jack gripped the hilt of his dagger tightly.

She was hardly as I expected her to look. She looked maybe fifteen or sixteen; she had a shining silver hair-thin band across her forehead and going around her head through her thick mass of spiky punkish black hair, accompanied by heavy eyeliner and mascara and near-black eyeshadows around her stunningly large electric blue eyes. Her outfit was complete with black fishnet stockings and low-cut black leather combat boots, but on top she was wearing...a tunic. The kind of tunic that the ancient dudes used to wear over in Greece when it still wasn't in ruins.

And she was carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows.

She blinked at me. Jack was gaping at her, likewise surprised. She turned to me. "Is everything all right?" she inquired. "I thought I saw some sort of fight going on when I was up in the air."

I crunched up my eyebrows. _Up in the air?_ In my subconscious, I realized her accent was American.

"Yes, there was, but now it's over," replied Jack in a surly tone, at the same time sheathing his dagger again. "I don't think that's any of your business. Come on, T, let's go."

He pulled me fully to my feet, and we started to go back down the alley again. But my legs turned to jelly, and I stumbled and fell on my face again. I heard Jack swearing under his breath again and stopping to help me up, but I groaned and didn't move. My body was practically shrieking at me to stop. I felt humiliated, unable to walk simply because I'd had a little fight with that accursed Aiden.

The girl was running toward us with a puzzled and concerned expression. "You're not all right!" she said. "What happened to you?"

I shook my head. She pressed her lips together and laid a hand on my forehead, and as her skin came in contact with mine, a strange sort of mildly electric tingling coursed down from her fingers and into my body. It almost felt like...energy.

Behind her, Jack gave her a disapproving look. "Who're you?" he demanded.

"Thalia," she said hastily in a breath. "Thalia..._Grace_." I thought I saw a shadow pass over her brow when she said her last name.

The girl Thalia was busily undoing the zipper on my black leather jacket and inspecting me, lifting my shirt or pulling it down, baring my arms and pressing them as if checking for broken bones. "What's your name?"

I licked my lips before replying. "Tara--Wellington. But my gang calls me T."

She started momentarily, then busily continued her work. "Gang?" she repeated.

I frowned sullenly. "Yeah."

"Is that--is that what the fight was all about?" she pressed. She moved up and bared my neck, then gasped involuntarily. "What--"

"Got strangled," I cut her off. "Get used to it. It's the real world."

She said nothing for a moment, but simply laid her hand gently around my bruised neck. The same tingling feeling flowed into me, and gradually the soreness and pain began to fade away. Then she dug around somewhere in the bag hanging across her body and produced a small glowing silver phial filled with an orange golden liquid. She held my head up and let me sip a few drops. "Just a little will do," she said.

I licked my lips. It tasted like liquid chocolate. "What is that?"

"Um...it's called nectar," she said hastily. Then she helped me up. "Come on, I've got to get you to my group. Then you can tell me everything."

"She's not going anywhere without me," Jack suddenly said, laying a hand defensively on my shoulder.

Thalia's eyes narrowed slightly for the briefest moment; then the shadow passed from her face again, and her big eyes seemed to look far away. After a second, she snapped back to reality. She nodded curtly. Then she turned and walked me down the alley, going at a gentle pace and supporting me with an arm around my lower back.

"Man, I don't even know where we're going to," Jack grumbled.

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**A/N: Hohhkay, so T was actually bitten by a monster, not just an ordinary snake, to clue you in. And if you look closely, Jack said that Aiden said he knew about those kinds of poisons. That just goes to emphasize that he's not a mortal. Jack's a mortal, though. Keep on guessing Aiden's parent! *is excited* Oh, and can anyone tell me who they think is T's parent? Hint: One of the characters who died in the PJO series was her sibling. ;D**

**PLEASE REVIEW! Thanks! Amabo vos! (I'll love you all for it--in Latin!)**

**~TOIMI**


	3. Chapter 3: I Learn About Greek Dudes

**A/N: Okay, okay, so I'm going to update Blood Ice soon. Tonight, if I can. There? You happy now? I just _know_ you're silently bugging me!!! I just couldn't let this idea go, though. Expect more updates for both stories--either in the same night, or every other night.**

**Avalonfreak: Thank you SO much for being my first (and only XD) reviewer! Please keep reading! Amabo te!**

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Chapter 3: I Learn About Greek Dudes

I groaned in relief as Thalia helped me into some weird-looking silver contraption that resembled a sleigh. _Santa Claus maniacs_, I thought to myself. _It's over a month till Christmas._

A few young and teenage girls similarly dressed to Thalia--without the fishnets, of course--and all sporting bows and arrows strapped to their backs were lounging against the the side of the sleigh. Many of them followed us with curious glances in their large, innocent eyes; others turned at the sound of Jack's footsteps and gazed warily at him.

Thalia turned just as a younger red-haired girl with a similar silver circlet and shining sombre grey eyes passed by, bow in hand. The girl stopped, and Thalia bowed. "My lady, I have found one in great need."

I was currently a tad too dizzy to even ask myself why this fifteen-year-old girl was bowing to a ten-year-old and calling her "my lady." But then I realized there was something about the girl--her voice was that of a full grown woman.

The girl inclined her head. "And hast thou detected--?"

Thalia gave her a bewildered look. "It may be, my lady."

The girl said nothing more, but simply passed her and came straight to me. I was breathing a little heavily, and my head was swimming, but I was still conscious enough to note her surprise when she saw my face.

_My eye,_ I thought bitterly. Even after having borne the mark for nearly three years now, at the age of seventeen and having seen so many gruesome things, I was still taken aback at my reflection: gaunt, tanned face with a long, squarish jaw; dark mahogany hair slashed at the nape and slanting down to my chin; strong, thick black eyebrows; wild snake green eyes; and a vicious scar from my forehead to the side of my ear and streaking past my left eye, forever marking it white and blind.

The girl quickly recovered her poise and simply bent down to touch her palm to my forehead. As her cool skin brushed against my brow, all my weariness and the tension of my nerves washed away, and I breathed more easily.

"Thank...you," I muttered.

She smiled slightly and inclined her head at me. Then she suddenly turned and indicated Jack off to the side with a flick of her head. "What is he doing here, Lieutenant?"

Thalia started. "He...is a friend, my lady. A staunch one."

_Lieutenant?_ I thought. Boy, was this a weird group.

"I see," replied the girl, though she hardly sounded happy about it. "Is he coming?"

"Coming?" interrupted Jack. "Where're you going?"

"To take her to a safe place," replied the red-haired girl in a steely voice.

"Well, I won't leave her, wherever you take her," Jack replied stoutly.

Just about then, I felt a drowse coming over me, and I passed out.

T~T~T~T~T

I woke up exactly where I'd fallen asleep--or rather knocked my lights out--except that this time, someone was moving and breathing beside me. Well, more of _under_ me. My right eye flew open.

"How are you feeling?" asked Thalia, immediately sensing my consciousness. I started, wondering if she had some sort of powerful connection with other people around her.

"Fine," I muttered, a tad more sullenly than I had intended. Of course, I wasn't exactly fine, but I didn't think I would sound particularly grateful if I told her that. My neck was still quite sore, but at the rest of me wasn't aching as much. I tried to get to my feet and found my legs were stiff and cold, and propped up on Thalia's lap; that was why I had thought she was under me.

"I don't think you should really move just yet," Thalia remarked, with a solicitous tone but shooting me a sudden, sharp look. I also found myself wondering about that unpredictable, abrupt manner of hers, not much unlike mine and Jack's. As she spoke, she bent down and slowly rubbed the life back into my muscles.

"So...if you're not tired," she began, again switching into a softer voice--but with a peculiar edge to it-- "would you mind explaining to me everything that happened?"

I narrowed my one good eye at her. "First, I want to know why you're helping me."

She leaned forward and brushed the disheveled hair from my face. "You're like...me," she stated simply.

"Now what the freakin' Pluto is that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

She sighed, as if she'd said something similar a couple of times before. Or maybe a little more than a couple. "You didn't die when you drank the nectar, so obviously you're like me," she pointed out.

I still didn't get it. "Lady, you're way ahead of me."

She laughed abruptly at my language. "At least someone here thinks of me as a lady," she joked, then sobered quickly. "All right, so nectar is the drink of...a group of higher beings."

"Higher beings?" I would have died right then and there if I'd realised how high the pitch of my voice rose.

She nodded and pursed her lips. "Yes, higher beings. Call them gods."

I stared at her. "Freak."

"And you're the kid of one of them."

"Double freak."

"I'm used to that."

I flew upright, immediately rewarded with a bump on my head from the low roof that covered just the back seat of the peculiar-looking sleigh. "Used to what?"

She crossed her arms with an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes. Immediately, I liked her. "Tara--I mean T, it doesn't take long to figure out that you've been regarded as an outcast and a freak all your life, just like me. It comes as no surprise to me to be called one."

"Oh yeah, Jack's a freak too," I noted sarcastically. "Does that mean he's one of your kids-of-the-higher-beings-called-gods?"

She stiffened visibly as I mentioned Jack's name. Puzzled, I was about to demand what the matter was, when she quickly relaxed again and gave me a seemingly forced smile. She shook her head. "No, he's not. He just doesn't have the same..._aura_ as you."

It was my turn to roll my eyes--or rather, my eye. "Yeah, right. Now I have an _aura_. Where exactly is this leading us, I'd like to know?"

Thalia started to frown. "T, I--I know you're a bit skeptical. Scratch that, _very_ skeptical. But that's normal. Almost all kids, except a gullible and desperate few, don't believe their parentage until they are convinced. These kids, the children of the gods, are called half-bloods, or more formally demigods. There's even a safe place for them in New York called Camp Half-Blood. I'm a daughter of Zeus, you know."

I remembered that electric glow her fingertips gave me when she touched me.

"Oh, the Greek dude who throws lightning around?" I said. "Yeah, I remember him. English class ten years ago."

Just then the sky above seemed to rumble faintly, and a glow of lightning sparked sporadically here and thre from beneath the thick clouds. Thalia flinched involuntarily. "You see what I mean? They're real. _Especially_ my dad."

I didn't want to admit it, but suddenly I started to feel a little more...accepting. "So," I continued in a lower tone, "that explains your...unusual clothing. So which of those Greek dudes is my dad? I'm assuming you're talking about the Greek ones."

A slight smile lit up Thalia's face. "Good," she breathed, "at least you know it's your dad. You have a--a mortal mom, right?"

"_Mortal_ mom?" I repeated. "Funny. Mortal. Oh, and mom? Yeah, I think she existed, but I don't think she loved anyone else besides her darn stage of spotlight."

Thalia gave me a strange, long look. "You are just so much like me," she whispered at last. "My mom--she was a performer, too. An actress. But she never shared any of the spotlight with me."

My eye widened. "You mean you're a runaway?"

She nodded. Her piercing blue eyes held a strange sort of bitter, half-hopeful light that was nearly unfathomable, at least to someone who didn't know her. I felt I could relate to her, so I understood the feelings she was going through.

She suddenly snapped back to attention. I had to start getting used to her mood swings. "So, you said you were going to tell me more about yourself. I've already explained why I'm helping you." Her eyes twinkled as she spoke the last part.

I matched her mirth with a moroseness to make the dead spirits shudder in their graves. "Not much to tell," I started out, a little reluctantly, as I looked down and pretended to be busy brushing the dust off myself. It seemed that was a constant habit of mine when I didn't like talking about myself.

Thalia just continued staring at me with those large, expectant blue eyes of hers. Surprisingly, it worked.

I heaved a sigh. "I ran away when I was thirteen for reasons aforementioned and got attacked by a giant snake-like monster along the way and walked the rest of the way to London and then almost died in a gutter from the snake's poisonous bite on my leg, but Jack came along and saved me and since then I've been part of his gang called the Black Hearts," I recited in one breath, eager to get the bad part of my life over with.

Thalia said nothing. She cocked a brow at me.

"What?" I demanded.

"There is definitely more to your story than you're letting on," she said knowingly.

I clenched and unclenched my fist repeatedly for at least two straight minutes to get the tension out of me before I said at last, "Promise you'll tell no one?"

Thalia rolled her eyes in that quickly endearing way of hers. "Do I look like someone who likes to blab?"

I shook my head sheepishly. "Er...no."

"Then I don't. T, I've gone through a lot, a lot not unlike your life. So if you tell me, I would gain nothing by telling on you."

I thought about it for a minute; then I nodded. "All right."

She broke into a tentative smile.

I took a deep breath. "So, yes, for starters, I was attacked today. By a gang leader called Aiden."

"And you knew him before, which means he most likely used to be some sort of friend," Thalia concluded immediately.

I shot her a sharp look. "How did you know that?"

She smiled. "I...I'm starting to form a connection. With you."

So that was why she seemed to almost know my exact thoughts. "An...empathy link?" I guessed. I thought I'd heard of it somewhere.

"Yes."

"Fine, at least I don't have to waste my breath telling you the whole thing line by line," I muttered with a small smile to match hers.

She rolled her eyes yet again. "You're wasting your breath by complaining. Pray continue."

"He wanted revenge. He wanted to kill me because I, well, _rejected_ him, in his own terms, starting three years ago, when I was fourteen. He was making advances on me, and I hated it, mostly because I wasn't interested, because I found it an insult to my gender, and because...well, you'll laugh."

Thalia sobered and shook her head solemnly. "I promise I won't."

"Well, I hate his smile."

That weird look came over her face yet again, then stole away. What was she thinking? I suddenly remembered that "empathy link" she had tried to form with me, so without knowing exactly what to do, I tried probing deeper, like poking a cat out of its lair. The realisation flashed across my mind. "So you know someone you liked before, but turned bad," I said.

She wasn't surprised how I had figured it out. "Yes. But the difference was, I loved hi--I loved his smile. I loved his ways."

I knew what she had actually meant to say. I decided to let it drop. Then something struck me. "You said that in past tense."

She nodded and looked down at her hands. "Yes. He died."

I snorted half in laughter and half in awkward sympathy. "Well, what wouldn't I give for Aiden to be dead right now."

She said nothing for a long moment; then she turned. "He must've been the one who got your eye."

I frowned and nodded.

She gave me a small, wistful laugh. "What a coincidence...Lu--well, the boy I knew had a scar across his eye, too."

I laughed in my usual sarcastic self, but the sarcasm was more directed at me. "Oh, Tara Fortia Wellington, you are growing to grow up to be such a perfect failure, like your father. You've got his evil look about you. Mark my words, if you don't lose that angry look right now, you're going to lose your eyesight."

Thalia sat very still for nearly a full minute. "That was your...mother, I'm guessing."

"Well, how the friggin' frogs did she expect me not to be angry at her?" I burst out. "Every freakin' day she'd leave at five in the morning, get all primped up on set, go out and have flings with her leading hotties, and come back past midnight all drunk. Then she'd go and have rants and raves about how I was a good-for-nothing rebel who looked too much like my father and who'd never amount to anything because her relationship with my father never amounted to anything. Then I'd get angry and demand who exactly my father was anyway, and then she'd beat me and shut me up in my room."

Thalia grimaced. "That's bad." She stopped. "No, that's _very_ bad."

I sighed. After an extended period of silence, I opened my eye again and rolled over into a half-sitting position, this time careful not to crash against the roof with my tall and bony frame. I saw Jack seated on the other side of Thalia, his cap pulled down low over his eyes and his head drooped to one side. "He doesn't sleep much nowadays," I informed Thalia in a hushed tone. "He's always trying to protect me from..." I trailed off. "Aiden."

Thalia nodded. Suddenly she caught her breath and pointed. "Look! We're just above Camp Half-Blood now!"

"Wait, we're _over_ Camp Half-Blood?" I repeated. "And in New York?" I turned my gaze to where she was pointing. I hadn't even realised until then that we had been _flying_ the sleigh, not running through the snow, which explained my subconscious wonder at the silence and smoothness of the ride.

"Is this a magical sleigh or what?" I said.

Thalia laughed so suddenly and so musically that some of the other girls piled up in front glanced back at her; I suppose she rarely laughed. "My lady--the one who looks like a red-haired girl--is Artemis, the maiden goddess of the moon and the Hunt," she said, her laughter abating somewhat. "She transports us Huntresses from one place to another by means of her silver chariot, which transforms into a flying sleigh to accomodate us all."

"Ah," I said. I glanced down again and saw the treetops spinning around and around as we began to circle downward and decrease our speed. Pretty soon, we had landed in the centre of nowhere, facing an imposing hill. Thalia grabbed my hand. "Come on, let's go up the hill, and I'll show you around the camp," she said. She sounded like she was much more excited than she was actually letting on.

I quickly went to rouse Jack, who batted me away in his usual grumpy self and muttered something about retarded frogs before abruptly springing up, quite wide awake, demanding if there was something wrong. I grinned ironically at him and told him briefly what Thalia had been narrating to me about the place.

Near the brow of the hill was a lone pine tree draped in some shimmering golden wool that looked like an ancient fleece. Thalia stopped and laid her head against the bark, drinking in the smell of the wood and the needles. "This was my tree," she said.

"Er," I replied, "what do you mean by 'my tree'?"

"It was the first night that I came to camp. I was being chased by monsters, and I tried to save Lu--" She stopped again. "Forget it. It's a long story."

I gave her a strange look, but decided to let it be.

T~T~T~T~T

"Hello, Tara. Thalia told me in her Iris message a few hours ago that you'd be coming."

I gaped at him, hardly comprehending what he was saying. Vaguely, my mind registered confusion: _Tara? Horse-man? Iris message? What?_ "You're a--you're a--a horse-man?" I faltered.

The man who called himself Chiron gave a hearty laugh, and his dark grey tail flicked about against the silver sheen of his dappled stallion's body. "You could say that," he replied with a smile, plucking his grey beard. "Although I prefer to be called a centaur."

"Thalia," I muttered out of the side of my mouth, "did you put hallucinogens in that nectar of yours?"

Thalia shoved me by the shoulder and rolled her eyes, hands on her hips.

Jack whistled, glancing about. "Looks real enough to me, T."

I turned my attention back to Chiron. "So...if this is a camp, where'm I s'posed to stay?"

"In the Hermes cabin, down there at the end of that U of cabins," Chiron directed me, kindly pointing it out to me among the myriad of clustered houses to one side of the sprawling land. He suddenly looked back at me with concern. "I know you must be tired, Tara, so please go ahead and settle your things in the cabin." I grimaced to myself when I realised I didn't have any "things." "It is winter now," Chiron continued, "so there should not be many children about, and you should be able to find ample space, I am sure. I must warn you, however, to keep an eye on your belongings."

"Hermes is the god of hospitality and thieves," Thalia whispered loudly.

Jack started. "You talkin' about me?"

I jabbed him. "No. You're a mortal. Keep that in mind."

Chiron turned to him next. "Jack Avalon," he greeted him warmly. "We appreciate your presence here. Now, seeing that you have no...er...proper place to stay yet, I am allowing you to stay here with Tara as long as you wish or need to."

Jack nodded curtly. "Thank ye."

Chiron bowed with his human half and quickly cantered away.

"Thalia? Thalia!!!"

We whipped around at the girl's sudden, distant call. A blonde head with flying curls zoomed into view over the horizon, and a teenage girl, maybe a year or two older than Thalia, dressed in dark blue jeans and an orange "Camp Half-Blood" sweatshirt, came panting up toward us, waving enthusiastically.

Thalia dropped her bow carelessly in the snow and practically soared across the distance to crash into the girl's arms and tumble down the slope, fighting playfully. "Annabeth!" she cried through muffled mouthfuls of snow. "You're a year-rounder now?"

The blonde girl nodded excitedly, her dark grey eyes sparkling. "Percy is, too. I convinced him to."

Thalia smiled lopsidedly as a boy just the blonde girl's age sauntered up at a much more relaxed pace, hands in pockets, and flipping his jet black hair from his stunning emerald green eyes. He waved to Thalia. "Have you two been talking about me?"

The girl called Annabeth smiled knowingly at him and punched his arm playfully. "No, Seaweed Brain. We were _discussing_ you."

The boy, apparently called Percy, pouted puerilely. Suddenly he looked up and noted me and Jack standing at the top of the hill; he waved us down. "You newbies?"

I came down when I saw Thalia waving us over as well. Self-consciously, I shook a little of my hair over my left eye and stuck my hands in the pockets of my black leather jacket. "You could call me a newbie," I replied, though my tone pointedly implied the opposite. "I'm T, and this is my friend Jack. He's...mortal."

Thalia whispered something in Percy's ear, and his puzzled look dissolved. Probably an explanation of my name, and the reason for Jack's presence.

"Pleased to meet you," said Percy, sticking out his hand to take Jack's (who gave it to him as warily as giving it to a wolf). "I'm a camp counselor here because I'm eighteen. So is Annabeth."

Annabeth smiled. "Hi."

Percy stuck out his hand now to shake mine, even as he was talking. I started, then glared sullenly at his hand. Cautiously I withdrew my right hand from my pocket and took his, praying he wouldn't notice.

As it happened, he did. His eye flicked down at my hand, and the surprise registered in his face, but then it was quickly washed away when Annabeth yelled, "Oh! Smell that? Sounds like we're in for some great food for dinner!"

"Finally!" Percy said in an answering shout of glee. He abruptly forgot all about the handshake and sprinted off after the blonde girl.

I gave Thalia an inquiring look, my brows cocked. "It's called ADHD," she said with a smile. "Very jumpy, we half-bloods--traces of battle reflexes from our ancient Greek roots. Oh, and they're steady, if you're asking about their relationship."

I gave her a mock grimace. "Needless to say."

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**A/N: Okay, so you're probably wondering what's wrong with T's hand. You'll see in the next chapter, which is coming up in approximately...one hour.**

**I told you I'm inspired.**

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**Thanks so much! Amabo vos!**

**~Katrina Mae**


	4. Chapter 4: I Have a Knack for Killing

**A/N: 4,038 WORDS? Freakin' French fries, I'm getting far too locquacious for my own good! XD**

**Thanks for the reviews, guys! Enjoy!**

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Chapter 4: I Have a Knack for Killing People

One of my pet peeves is waking up the wrong way. And if someone's smelly sock is dangling in my face the second I open my eye, I call that the wrong way. Chiron was right about one thing: there certainly weren't many kids in the Hermes cabin because it was wintertime. But the catch? Few kids = lots of space of stinky mess. And so I stumbled out of the cabin with my hair half-combed (I rarely brushed it, anyway) and my teeth half-brushed and my leather jacket half-on over my black jeans and Converses. I decided to skip the communal breakfast at the dining pavilion, and Jack apparently had thought to do the same thing, since I found him lounging against the wall just outside the door.

I started. "Jack! What're you doing here?"

"Your Hermes thing gave me an idea," he replied soberly. Without looking at me, he thrust out a plastic bag full of bagels already spread inside with different kinds of cream cheese.

I sighed and sank my teeth into one of them, bathing in the wonderful feeling of the soft, dense bread in my mouth. "Thanks, Jack."

"No prob."

"So," I began, "where'd you stay?"

"Oh," he replied with a wave of his hand, "there was a small room in what they called the Blue House, over there."

I followed his gaze and nodded.

"Hey, T."

I looked up at Thalia's voice. She was not dressed as a genuine Hunter today; instead, she had switched her eerie glowing silver tunic for a long black t-shirt and dark ripped jeans that really seemed to fit her hair and make-up more...by mortal standards. Of course, I was not mortal, as I was quickly--and grudgingly--beginning to accept.

I hastily gulped down the last of my bagel and watched as Thalia came sprinting down the hill into the valley of cabins as if her lungs were having the time of their life. I waved to her, careful to use my left hand.

"Oh, hey, Jack!" Thalia noted as she skidded to a halt with hardly a gasping breath. Jack responded with a grunt.

"He's like that," I explained shortly. For a brief moment, upon remembering my old life with Jack, my signature scowl returned to my face. But then I realised where I was and whom exactly I was talking to, and my face cleared with some effort on my part.

Thalia marched up to him. "I have a question for you."

Jack regarded her warily.

"You _can_ see all this, can't you?"

Jack threw up his hands. "T, does she think I'm an idiot or blind or what?"

"I'm assuming you can see this, then," said Thalia, with a sage nod. "It appeared to be so yesterday, but I only needed to make sure. You're a mortal, but you can see through the Mist."

"Mist?" I echoed, glancing about suspiciously at the very clear skies. "What mist?"

Thalia explained it all to me very patiently, which surprised me because of her usual previous kick-ins of ADHD. It seemed _I_ was the one suffering from the disease, not her.

"So, most people can't see you're holding a bow or floating around in funny Santa Claus sleigh?" I clarified.

For a moment, Thalia scowled; then she broke into a smile again. "Yeah."

"Tha-li-a!"

I recognised Annabeth's voice, the blonde girl from the previous evening. Sure enough, her light golden waves were bobbing down across the grass toward us.

"Oh, great, not another sparring match," Thalia muttered sarcastically, much as I would have said in the same situation, minus the string of oaths attached to the end. "Annabeth!" she called out. "Stop bugging me! You know how much I suck at swords!"

I started. _Swords?_

Annabeth halted in front of us; furtively I hid my eye again behind my hair. "Actually," she said, casting us all a smile as bright as her locks to match our bad-tempered triple scowls, "I came for Tara."

"Name's T," I muttered sullenly, picking the dust off my jacket yet again. "What do you want?"

"Um, Percy was wondering if you would like to try your hand at some of the Greek weaponry sports," Annabeth continued, apparently undisturbed by my hostility.

"Greek weaponry sports?" I repeated. "Now what the friggin' French fries does _that_ mean?"

"I like that," Thalia murmured in my ear. "Which reminds me, I'm late for breakfast. Bye!" She was literally gone in a flash.

"I mean, fighting with swords, bows and arrows, spears, javelins, et cetera," Annabeth spelled out for me. She looked pretty intelligent to me, so I thought she probably knew I was just nervous and tired and jittery. I also noticed she was naturally--though unconsciously--beautiful. I mean _very_ beautiful.

No wonder she and the guy Percy had been going steady.

I shrugged, sticking my hands in my pockets again. "Nothing to lose, I suppose." I turned and waved to Jack. "See you later."

He nodded and slipped away back to the Big House.

"So," said Annabeth as we plodded up the hill again to what was presumably called "The Arena," "you're from Great Britain?"

"London," I specified shortly. "Not born there, but grew up there for the last four years."

She nodded. "I know. I noticed the metro-English accent."

I started visibly. "Are you one smart kid or what?"

She blushed, tinging her tan cheeks a pleasing rose colour that only heightened her natural cuteness. "I'm a daughter of Athena," she said, "goddess of war, wisdom, and crafts."

I whistled, long and low. "And I don't know who my dad is."

She cocked her head at me. "Why, how old _are_ you, anyway? You don't look too young."

"Seventeen," I replied, and added morosely under my breath, "with too many deaths behind me."

Apparently she hadn't heard the last part. "Seventeen?!" she exclaimed. "That's so strange!"

"What?" I demanded.

"It was arranged by Percy with the gods...well, on his last quest, or mission, whatever you want to call it...that all half-bloods would be claimed by their parents and brought to camp by the age of thirteen."

"Claimed?" I echoed, perhaps for the third time that day.

She nodded. "Yes. Meaning, they give a sign to show if a kid is theirs or not. And since you don't know who your dad is, apparently you haven't been claimed yet."

I scrunched up my nose and tried to put on a tough look. "That ain't bad, is it?"

She shrugged. "I...honestly don't know."

I was opening my mouth to say something (sarcastic, most likely), when we were suddenly interrupted by a cloud of gasps, shrieks, and perfume.

"Oh Styx," Annabeth muttered. Whatever Styx meant. "Not those Aphrodite airheads again."

"Aphrodite?" I said. "You mean the goddess of love and, uh, _passions_?"

She nodded grimly.

"You could be a daughter of Aphrodite yourself," I commented. "I mean, with the smarts."

"Thanks, but no thanks," she replied with an appreciative smile.

"Annabeth! Oh, _Annabeth!_ How was your last date with Perrr-cy?" A curvy, average-height girl with honey-gold ringlets, flawless tanned skin, and deep blue eyes sprinted toward us in a sickening cloud of--I don't know, Coco Chanel?--sweet perfume.

"It was _not_ a date," retorted Annabeth in an obstinate, exasperated tone. "Keep you and your fancies to your prissy cabin, Sofia."

Sofia frowned and stopped. Her gaze shifted to me. "Oh!!!" she shrieked in ebullition. "The newbie! Hooray!"

"You so totally don't live up to your name," Annabeth remarked with a rolling of her eyes.

I glanced sideways at her. "What?"

"Her name's Sofia, which descends from _sophos_, which is Ancient Greek for _wisdom_," she explained.

I nodded. "Ah. I see."

"C'mon, come with us, Tara!" Sofia begged, already grabbing my wrist. With alarm, I noted it was the wrist of my right hand, and quickly I jerked back, though more out of surprise than out of disgust at her. She turned back with a puppy look in her eyes. "Pretty, pretty please, Tara? With a lipstick on top?"

Before I knew it, my lanky frame was being whisked away toward the hot pink Aphrodite cabin and seated abruptly before a vanity, with Annabeth's enraged yell not too far behind.

"Now, let's see what we can do to get you looking your best on your first day at camp," said Sofia, clapping her hands. Immediately a host of other _cute_ girls (note sarcasm) bounced out to join her. She leaned over and whispered conspiratorially but rather loudly, "Certainly want to look your hottest with the Apollo and Hermes kids around," and gave me a wink.

She clapped again. "All right, girls, down to work!" she called. "Lori, you go get the chest of spare clothes. Gail, you know where to find the tray of shoes. No, not the pumps tray! The boots, Gail, the boots! Oh, and Mora? My personal cosmetics case is right over there on the shelf over my bunk. Yes, yes, my personal one. It's the best one, and you know it."

A black-haired girl with ice blue eyes appeared with her arms full of the dreaded chest; I supposed she was Lori. She got down to business without delay, and immediately began sifting through clothes while Sofia "supervised" her at a rather close range: "No, not a tank, dear, you know it's freezing out there. Yes, a jacket, no, not that one, that's mine. Oh, the skinny ones will do just fine. The denim ones, Lori, not the double-knits! No, not a t-shirt. Wait, a t-shirt?! Horrors! Who put this t-shirt in here? Yes, dear, just chuck it in the garbage. Oh, perfect! That lace-up long-sleeved corset will do just fine."

Soon I found myself being helplessly undressed and dressed in a flurry of cloth and giggles and whispers. When I looked down again, I was wearing a pair of black denim skinny jeans, much to my distaste, tucked deep into black leather knee-high lace-up boots. At least they didn't have heels, I consoled myself, though the thought was hardly comforting, considering that my breath was being squeezed out of me with a lace-up black corset pushed up around a black mid-riff shirt with long sleeves. Then they were shoving on a blood red jacket over the outfit, rather reminiscent of a morbid rendition of the _Thriller_ jacket worn by the American singer Michael Jackson.

"Now, Tara, it's time for your hair and your make-up," Sofia giggled breathlessly.

"Call me T," I growled, to no avail. Either she didn't hear me, or she completely ignored me. Instead, she sat me down in front of the vanity mirror again, chattering endlessly.

"We need to seriously shampoo and comb your hair, Tara," she was saying. "Look at what potential this has: a rich, dark chocolate, like my mahogany Steinway at home--not that I play it; it's for display, dear, you know, rich visitors and all--just trimmed the right length with a decisiveness characteristic of your features. Oh, isn't that so beautiful?" Before I could protest, she and the strawberry-curled girl called Mora had picked up fine bone-carved combs and begun raking through my ratty tangles.

All fell suddenly silent.

I whipped around and glared at them with my one good eye, my blind left one having now been revealed. "Lay off me," I snarled.

Sofia's lip was trembling as she studied the wild scar across my face as if it were a wilting rose. "Oh," she breathed, "isn't that just perfectly _tragic_?" And, much to the dismay and distraction of the other girls, she fainted right then and there.

Without wasting anymore precious time, I snatched up my pile of old clothes and took advantage of the fuss of the situation to snap out of the stupid outfit ad slip out the door unnoticed, back in my comfortable old self.

"Hey, Annabeth told me I'd find you here," came Percy's voice.

"Boy, am I _glad_ to see you," I flung at him with a sarcastic glare at the back door of the Aphrodite cabin, which now resounded with shrieks of panic and calls of "Get an Apollo kid! Quick, quick, somebody get an Apollo kid! Preferably Alex, because he's hot!"

Percy grinned. "At least you got changed in a jiffy."

"In London, life ain't going to wait for you," I retorted, tossing back my hair. Then I realised my mistake.

Percy's grin slowly faded by the slightest degree when he saw my face. "Oh, um, let's go sparring now, shall we?"

T~T~T~T~T

"A pen? What kind of freakin' Greek weapon is a _pen_?"

Percy smiled wickedly, and as he uncapped the pen, what was supposed to be the shaft quickly morphed into a full-length sword made of a shimmering bronze.

"Holy moly!" I exclaimed.

"It's called _Anaklusmos_, Greek for Riptide," said Percy calmly as he took a few experimental swipes in the air. "A gift from my dad, Poseidon."

"Cool," I muttered.

"How about you? Got any weapons?" said Percy. "Thalia mentioned something about a gang, and paired with your leather jacket, I'd assume you use a gun."

I rolled my eye. "Why does everybody on this freakin' earth think all gangs use guns?" I burst out. "The Black Hearts use daggers. We fight the real thing."

"Oh." Percy looked stunned.

In an instant, I had whipped out the dagger strapped to my back beneath my open jacket and had it pointed before me as I glided into a defensive crouch.

"Well, th-that's neat," Percy stammered. He quickly dodged aside and picked up a dagger from the stash lying on a table off to the side of the arena. "What's it called?"

"Black Light," I replied calmly, still keeping my expectant poise. I was slipping back into my old self, the T of the Black Hearts, the second-in-command of one of the notorious gangs in London, the tomboyish girl who could handle a dagger like her own hands.

Percy ducked as I lunged at him. "Listen, I'm kinda new at this," he said, a little nervously, "so I'll have to ask you to be careful, or else my ear'll get chopped off." How ironic--the student slowing down for the teacher. "To get you a little slowed down, I might start asking questions," Percy was informing me.

I nodded, but still kept on circling around him anyway. "Shoot."

"Well, first of all, why's it called Black Light?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Because, stupid, it's named after the black light in my life."

Percy didn't even flinch as I called him stupid. _Must be called that lots of times._ "Which is?"

"Jack is the black light, if you want to know, Mr. Busybody."

"Hey. Just asking."

"And trying to distract me."

"I hope I'm succeeding, at any rate."

It was quite true. Before I knew it, his questions had thrown my mind's focus off balance, and in a swift tactic similar to one I thought he might use with a sword, he had disarmed me. I fell on my bottom in the sand, grunting. Black Light was too far away.

"Okay, I win," Percy announced triumphantly, as he playfully pointed the rusty tip of his borrowed dagger at my throat.

I don't know what got into me. I really shouldn't have been angry, least of all angry at him, since he had volunteered to be my teacher and all. But something dark and sinister was tingling to life in the buried vaults of my memory, and with a snarl of rage, I lashed out a hand. "Not yet."

The shock flashed across his face as if a stone had dropped from the sky and hit him on the head. I was on my back on the ground now, but my right hand had shot out and encountered his dagger, steadily pushing him back, as I grunted with the effort. The sharp edge of the blade was dangerously close to my skin, but I didn't care. I just kept pushing for all I was worth, and soon I was half-sitting, then getting up in a crouch, as I wrestled to fling him backwards, but he was stubborn.

A memory flashed across my mind.

I'd gone through this before.

T~T~T~T~T

_"T? I'll just go out back for a sec."_

_I turned and nodded quickly as Jack disappeared out the back door and pounded down the rickety stairs toward the outhouse outside. Then I turned my attention back to the chipped metal pan in my hands, which I was busily cleaning with a suspicious-looking greenish chemical from the garbage heap and scraping with the edge of my dagger, Black Light._

_"What is that stuff, T?" asked Mikey, wrinkling his nose as he passed through the broken-down kitchen and hastily searched the pitiful fridge for a drink. He decided on a can of Sprite and popped it open with a fizz._

_I smiled involuntarily to myself. The fifteen-year-old kid was absolutely addicted to soda pop; he wouldn't even dare leave the house with us on our little "missions" without bringing at least three cans of his favourite. Those expeditions usually landed us running desperately from the constable as soon as he tumbled over a wall and burst all his cans with one big telltale pop._

_"I'm hoping it's going to clean this ol' rotten pan," I replied with a grunt of mildly exasperated humour, "or else you won't be getting eggs for breakfast no more."_

_Mikey sauntered over and sat down in the creaking chair opposite me, blowing a stray strand of dark hair from his pale face. He looked absolutely sick, but he wouldn't let on. I looked up. "Mikey, put that soda down."_

_"Wha--?" He looked up at me with his big startled blue eyes._

_"I said put it down."_

_Obsequiously, he set it down on the table a few inches away from him, but he still eyed it hungrily._

_"That's enough," I said as sternly as I could, though I couldn't help twitching my mouth up and down in an uncontrollable smile. "You've had too much all day. You're already making yourself sick."_

_"Yeah, right, Momma," he muttered, but glanced fondly at me all the same. I smiled back, and all was forgiven. At sixteen, I was his "big Momma," as well as the mother hen of the entire flock--the Black Hearts. The boys were all meanies and toughies when they wielded their daggers and ran the streets at night, but at home, scrunched up over the table and eating the food I cooked when I wasn't busy joining their escapades, they were as obedient as a brood of puppies._

_I opened my mouth to say something, when suddenly the front door creaked, and somebody entered the presumed living room. I glanced across at Mikey and stiffened; we both equally knew that step all too well._

_"T? Anybody home?"_

_"Here," Mikey quickly answered. He signaled to me to keep quiet, and obediently I bent over the pan and started to polish it again._

_Aiden poked his head round the doorway and swung into the kitchen in an easy, confident gait. He sprawled himself in a chair directly next to mine and placed an unwanted arm across my back. "Whatcha doing, dear? Cooking up a special surprise for me?"_

_I bit my lip till the blood began to flow. I was doing my best to keep still and ignore him, but Mikey knew I had already passed boiling point with Aiden._

_"Say, where's your guardian Jack?" Aiden said, spitting out the word guardian._

_"He went to the john," I replied, keeping my voice as emotionless as possible._

_Aiden laughed. "So, it's just you, Mikey, and me."_

_My eye flickered as I glanced at him from beneath my curtain of hair, then quickly returned to my work._

_Before I knew what was happening, Aiden had grabbed me and planted a deep, hungry kiss on my lips. I screamed and lashed out with the pan, which successfully hit the side of his head and got him a few feet away. I dropped the pan and swiftly drew the dagger from my back._

_"Don't you dare touch 'er, Aiden!" Mikey shouted, on his feet now too and completely forgetting about his soda._

_Aiden laughed from where he was, leaning against the doorway where my blow with the pan had tossed him. Slyly he drew his own dagger from the inside of his sleeve. "Or else what?"_

_I roared in rage and sprang at him, and our blades clashed with fiery sparks. Mikey had also drawn his knife from his side and flown into the fray._

_The duel didn't last long. A few jabs here and there, paired with sarcastic grins and growling insults, and, suddenly, with a distracting smile, he had disarmed me. Involuntarily, I took a step back. He lunged at me._

_"T! Look out!"_

_I whipped around at Mikey's yell just in time to shield myself with a hand. I had no dagger, no weapon, no defense. Just my hand against the knife. The edge slashed down. I screamed with pain._

_Then, all in a flash, I saw Mikey's blue eyes wide with horror and fear. I saw the flash of the blade as it came down. I saw the blood spurting everywhere._

_"No!!!"_

_I fell into a sobbing heap on my knees and cradled him in my arms. His breathing was shallow and ragged, his voice faint and raspy. Red liquid like mashed-up candied cherries was soaking through his shirt and his jacket. "Don't cry...Momma," he whispered. He gripped my bloodied right hand in his and then lay still._

_I whipped around. Aiden was standing right behind me, mouth agape, his hand still clutching his crimson dagger. His eyes were flaming with a mixture of fear and rage, as was mine. The tears streamed down my cheeks and blocked my throat as I managed to choke out, "Aiden, get out."_

_"T, I--"_

_"Get out!!!"_

_In a flash, he was pounding down the stairs. Then the door slammed in the distance, and he was gone._

_A footstep fell behind me again, but this time I didn't look up anymore. "He's dead, Jack," I whispered. "H-he's dead."_

_Jack crouched beside me, and for a brief moment I looked up at him. I thought I saw his eyes glistening; I quickly looked away again. "It's all my fault, Jack. If only I--if only I--if only..."_

_Jack laid a hand around me and squeezed my shoulders. I sobbed bitterly and sagged against him, letting it all out. "It's not your fault, T," said Jack, very quietly. Then he stopped and picked up my right hand in his._

_There, amid the morbid red liquid flowing down my palm, I saw my ring finger was missing._

T~T~T~T~T

When I came back to my self again, I found Percy on the ground, looking fearfully up at me as I held my hand poised above him, clutching nothing. I started and rolled back, gasping and stuttering out an apology.

Percy got up and dusted himself off as if things were back to normal. "That's fine, no, really," he hastily replied, reaching out to steady me by the shoulder. "But...if you don't mind my asking...what happened to your hand? Dog bit it or something?"

I bit my lip and looked down at the odd little stump where the ring finger of my right hand was supposed to be. I laughed bitterly. "Call Aiden a dog," I spat at my own feet. "He bit it off with his dagger."

Percy clearly didn't know who or what I was talking about, but he left it at that. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as I am," I replied morosely. "What's a finger compared to a life?" With those words hanging in the air between us, I picked up my dagger, sheathed it, and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Percy called after me.

I paused.

"What happened?"

I didn't turn, but I felt his eyes looking hard at my back. I clenched my fists involuntarily. "Trust me on this," I said, my voice low. "You don't want to know."

Then I left.

* * *

**A/N: *moonwalks around in excitement* Yes, I am rather obsessed with Michael Jackson. So is my sister.**

**Anyway, here's an incentive for you peoples to review: I need a character to borrow. Either a Huntress or an evil demigod, preferably! Please fill out the following form:**

**Name -  
****Age -  
****Appearance -  
****Strengths/Abilities -  
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**And I think that's just about it. PLEASE review!**

**~Katrina Mae**


	5. Chapter 5: Dr Pepper

**A/N: Heya, all! I know, I know, I promised this update _last night_, but the fact is, I got a load of World Literature homework to do, and I just finished a major project for _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. So, basically, I wrote these 3,112 words in the last approximately 26 minutes. XD**

**Anyway, thanks for the reviews and the characters, everyone! Special thanks to Lonely Traveler for your encouragement, Avalonfreak for your wild enthusiasm (and evil charrie Colin ;D), animefan00 for your critique and character Dusty, and IamAbotticelli for your highly interesting character submission Sky. As you'll see, I'll be using animefan00's character Dusty first, since he was submitted first. Yeah, I might just end up using the submitted characters in chronological order. Thanks a lot, Darian!**

Chapter 5: Dr. Pepper

_I awoke to the thick, pungent smell of fire. My eye flew open: smoke was seeping into the room from every corner, filling my mouth and nose, clogging my throat as I cried aloud. I flew to my feet._

_"Mikey? Jack! Tom! Saul! Where are you?"_

_My cry was strangled with the smoke thick in my mouth. I waved my hand before me in an attempt to clear my vision, but I could hardly see one centimeter in front of me. I almost crashed into the door. Breathing a sigh of relief, I sought the doorknob and yanked wildly at it._

_It was stuck._

_Now fully awake, I looked down and caught sight of the flames licking evilly at the edges of the floor, rapidly progressing down the beams and consuming the boards. I redoubled my efforts to pull open the door, but it was stubborn._

_With no time to lose, I whipped out the dagger from my back and slid it through the crack between the door and the lintel; the steel rang out and sparks flew as my blade encountered the iron poker caught through the latch. I growled fiercely and flipped the blade upward with all my force until I hard the poker catch and fall to the floor outside with a clatter. I threw open the door._

_"Fire! Fire! Everyone, get out!"_

_I breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of Jack's voice. I stumbled out of the room, coughing, and held the front of my jacket over my mouth and nose as I tumbled down the rickety stairs toward the source of his voice._

_"Mikey! Tom? Aiden?"_

_I continued to pound down the steps, pursuing his voice. Where was he? Oh, where was he?_

_A hand reached out and grabbed me roughly. I whipped around and almost lost my balance. "T! I thought we'd lost you!"_

_I sighed again in relief. "Jack. You're here. Where're the others?"_

_"I dunno. I heard Mikey and Tom and Saul. I dunno where Crispin is."_

_At that moment, a mop of dark red hair blurred past us, pounding down the stairs toward the door. "There he goes," I replied. "Come on, let's go."_

_Jack hesitated; then he nodded. We both knew there might still be one person in the house._

_"Wait! Help!"_

_I whipped around at Aiden's voice behind us. I shared one swift glance with Jack: his eyes said no. Mine flashed yes._

_In one long bound, I jerked myself away from Jack and stumbled up the stairs again, stifling my gasps and coughs. It didn't take long to find Aiden struggling on the floor, his leg pinned down by a beam that was quickly being consumed by flames. My reflexes kicked in; it didn't matter anymore who he was. I took one look at his dark eyes and then kicked the beam with all my might, at the same time shoving him down the stairs. He didn't argue._

_"T! Hurry! The building's collapsin'!"_

_I sprinted down toward Jack's desperate call. Then I heard the ominous groan of the beams above us._

_Aiden was right in front of me, looking back fearfully. I didn't hesitate; I gave him another shove out the door, then backed up slowly and braced my tall frame against the doorway._

_"T! What the heck are you doing?"_

_I began to feel the weight of the beams descending on me. "Don't mind me, Jack! Just get the others and go!"_

_"T..."_

_I glared at him through the sweat pouring into my one eye. "Just GO!"_

_He pressed his lips together, grabbed the other boys, and threw them outside. But he still hesitated._

_My breath came in ragged gasps. Already the top floor had heaved itself into shambles. I gave him one long, angry look. "Jack. Go."_

_With one last longing look behind him, he disappeared from the haze of smoke and leaped outside._

_Now was my chance. I looked up and saw a flaming beam rolling down the stairs toward me. I had to get out, and get out fast. I sprang out from the collapsing doorway and sprinted to the main exit for all I was worth. Ten more steps...five more steps...one..._

_Yes._

_I was outside._

_I gasped for fear and relief as my face ploughed into the sharp sting of the freezing snow. Quickly I scrambled up on my hands and knees and looked back. The house was nothing now but a charred wooden frame being licked up by the last of the fire, with the last stubborn roof beams slowly crashing down. I wasn't a second too late._

_Someone laid a hand tentatively on my shoulder. "Did everyone get out?"_

_I panted and took a deep breath. "Yes," I said quietly, without turning. I collapsed forward again into the snow, every muscle in my body screaming PAIN._

_"Ye all right?" said Jack._

_I nodded wearily. I forced myself to sit up, drinking up the wonderful feel of cool melting snow beneath me to calm my nerves. Within a few minutes, I began to feel slightly better, though my body was still sore._

_Suddenly I looked up and caught a movement in the corner of my eye. Brushing away Jack's hand, I stood up unsteadily and stalked over to where Aiden was crouching farther away._

_"You." I spat at his feet. "You barred the door to my room."_

_I heard Jack's sharp gasp behind me. "What?!"_

_"You were trying to kill me, weren't you?" I said, my voice low._

_"I don't know what you're talking about." Aiden's voice was dead, flat, but I could just hear the anger simmering beneath it._

_I ignored him. "Aiden, you set the fire."_

_He leaped up, his fiery eyes flashing. "No, I didn't!"_

_I was choking with fury. "Yes, you did! And I saved your life!"_

T~T~T~T~T

My ears were ringing as I jerked awake. I found I was breathing hard, almost gasping for air. All else was silent around me. I ripped away the restraining blankets and ran to the door of the Hermes cabin; once outside, I leaned heavily on the frosty wall and took deep breaths of the crisp, cold air.

I found myself wandering down the clearing between the U of cabins, my feet crunching rhythmically in the snow. I remembered at the last second what Thalia had told me about the cleaning harpies, but I didn't care. It was too stuffy indoors.

Something small and metallic flashed as I stumbled on it, and soon I found myself sprawled in the cold snow facing a very innocent-looking can of Dr. Pepper, its dark brown contents already seeping into the silver ground. I quickly got up on my knees again and brushed myself off, then reached down to set the can right. I wondered who in the world would set a can of soda _outside_ a cabin door instead of inside it.

Suddenly I stopped, the can still gripped tightly in my hand. Memories flashed across my mind: the broken-down fridge in the battered kitchen. The stash of Sprite and Coke tucked in the corner. The tall, lean, ambling figure, the easy gait. The large, deep blue eyes.

Mikey.

I felt an unwarranted tear slide down my cheek. I'd never cried so suddenly before--except the time I had seen Mikey's face, pale and dying, his mouth moving in his last words.

I clutched the can in my fist until I was nearly crushing it; then I suddenly remembered myself, and of some inexplicable impulse, I got up to my feet and knocked at the nearby cabin door.

It was a very long while before the door was jerked open. The minute it was, I found music blasting in my ears and the tip of an arrow sticking in my face. It took a great effort on my part to resist the urge to unsheath my knife.

"Who's there?" a voice called out.

I glanced up at the sign above the door: Apollo. No wonder about the music, then.

"I'm returning your soda can," I replied, slightly irritated but also amused. It had been such a long while since I'd let myself feel amused, I realized just then.

At that, the arrow suddenly withdrew, the music turned off, and the door was flung wide open. I found myself accosted by a wary and confused-looking boy, slightly younger than I was, with scruffy dark brown hair falling over his eyes. I cocked my head quizzically when I saw his eyes: one was dark brown, and the other was grey. He looked quizzically at me too, perhaps because of my accent.

He immediately relaxed when he fully saw me. "Sorry," he muttered, and accepted the slightly crumpled can from my hand. "But...you still didn't answer my question."

"I'm T," I said shortly. I nodded and made as if to go. I could hardly stand it--that hair, that face, the expression of those eyes. They all spelled Mikey.

"Wait!" he called out after me.

I turned back. "What?" I stuck my hands hurriedly in my pockets and tried not to meet his gaze, knowing what I would find there.

"What kind of a name is T?" he demanded, a little bewildered.

I gave him an odd little laugh; my expression must have been unreadable. "It's still a name. What's yours?"

"Er...Dusty." He grinned sheepishly.

I rolled my eye. "There, see? Now what kind of a name is Dusty?"

"Not half as bad a name as T," he retorted.

"T is short for something," I grunted, trying my best to hide the smile creeping up the corners of my mouth.

The boy Dusty suddenly glanced over my shoulder at the snowy clearing brightly lit by the full moon. "Er, why don't you come in? You don't want to get eaten by the harpies and all. You know."

I laughed for sure this time. Rolling my eye again, I gratefully stepped inside into the comfortable warmth of his cabin. I glanced about curiously; his cabinmates were sound asleep, and loudly announcing it with their snores. "Say, what happened to your all-so-mighty bow and arrow?"

He grinned and pointed to the black headphones slung around his neck. "Convertible gift from my dad."

I nodded with thanks as he proffered me a chair. "Cool. Wish I knew who my dad was."

He shrugged. "You should know soon. You look older than thirteen."

"I know, I've heard about that business from the Athena girl Annabeth," I replied. "I'm seventeen. What a dad, huh? Doesn't care at all about his kid getting killed or not...by harpies." Somehow, I just couldn't resist putting in that last part, paired with a smile. What was getting into me?

"I'm fourteen." Dusty looked up at me from where he was lounging against his desk. "Hey, why're you looking at me like that?"

I hadn't realised that I'd been staring intently at him, particularly at his deep, flashing grey eye. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "Sorry. I shouldn't have. It's just that...you remind me of somebody." I gave him a small, sad smile as I spoke the last words.

"Oh." He didn't seem to know what to say at first. "Well, am I supposed to be honoured or what?"

I chuckled. "You should be," I said simply. Freaking farrago, why was it that he could draw so many laughs out of me?

Like only Mikey could.

"Say, uh...that _person_ I remind you of. Did the guy like soda?"

I nodded. "Addicted to it. Would drink himself sick." I looked up. "How'd you guess?"

He shrugged again. "Well, when I opened the door, you were holding the can and looking at it with this funny expression on your face."

I brushed away my hair and hid my sheepish grin unconsciously behind my right hand, displaying both of my scarred injuries. Obviously Dusty noticed, because his eyes flickered from my blind eye to my missing finger before circling back to my face, but thankfully he didn't say anything. Instead, he tactfully changed the subject. "You like music?"

I cocked a brow. "Not much into it." An image of my mother on the stage flashed across my mind. "Why?"

"Oh, well, I thought you wouldn't mind if I put some on. Can't last ten minutes without it."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself. What kind?"

"I like anything, really." Taking the cue from my nonchalant look, he flipped on the iPod seated on his desk and scrolled down to a random number. "I like an element of surprise," he explained at my raised eyebrow.

We both opened our mouths to talk even as the music came up, but then I suddenly stopped when the lyrics began.

_"Midnight. Not a sound from the pavement.  
__Has the moon lost her memory?  
__She is smiling alone.  
__In the lamplight, the withered leaves collect at my feet  
__And the wind begins to moan_

_"Mem'ry. All alone in the moonlight.  
__I can smile at the old days;  
__I was beautiful then.  
__I remember the time I knew what happiness was  
__Let the mem'ry live again..."_

"It's 'Memory' from _Cats_," Dusty said with a sage nod as the song ended. He paused. "What's wrong?"

I must have gotten that "funny expression" on my face again. Quickly I shook my head clear. "No, no, er, it's nothing. So...who's singing? Never heard anyone so good before. Geez, not even my mom."

He checked his iPod. "Oh, it's someone called Katrina Mae. Gods, you're right. She could even be a kid of Apollo."

I felt the bittersweet smile creeping up my face again. I bent my head studiously over my shoes, then suddenly looked up again. "Take a look at this."

He uncrossed his feet and sat forward, following my finger. "What?"

"Our shoes."

"What about them?" He stopped. "Oh."

We were both wearing battered black Converse.

He laughed a little. "Mine are more worn out, though."

I shook my head. "No, they're not. Do yours have a hole on the heels?"

"No, but I got a thin patch on the sole of my left one."

"Mine's worn down to nothing there."

"Yeah, but nothing beats my right tongue being all ratty."

I grinned. "You bet? I'm _missing_ my tongue."

His jaw dropped. "No kidding."

Just then, a shaft of light peeped through the window to our right. Dusty sighed. "Yeah, rise and shine, Dad. It's morning now...T."

"I guessed that," I retorted, my tone irritated but my face still smiling. Slowly I got up and ran a hand through my hair. Now that I thought about it, I realised I was just a little less than a head taller than he was. I made for the door. "So, are the harpies gone now?"

He nodded and held the door open for me. "It's safe. Er, what weapon do you practice?"

My eyebrows shot up. "Dagger. Why?"

He shook his head hastily. "No, nothing. Just wondering. Actually, thinking if we'd see each other sometime today."

I got the feeling he had meant to ask about my finger, but had politely found a reasonable excuse for asking. I shrugged it off. "Well, it's still one arena."

"You got that right."

"So long."

"Yeah." He shut the door, and I smiled as I heard him popping a soda from behind the wall.

T~T~T~T~T

As I slid into the arena late that morning, I found my old familiar scowl slipping on again. It felt kind of good and bad at the same time, but considering my surroundings of weapons and warfare, I decided it was good for the moment. I glanced up and noticed Thalia standing some distance ahead, likewise scowling at a spear held poised in her hand. I realised I liked the look of determination on her face.

I let her throw the spear and hit the target--dead centre--before interrupting her. "Thalia?"

She turned and relaxed her face a fraction when she saw who it was. "Hey, T."

I gestured toward the spear, still quivering in the target and crackling with blue sparks of electricity. "Even your spear is electrifying."

She rolled her eyes. "T, that scowl isn't looking so right on you this morning. I'd say it looks better on me, don't you think?"

I gave an exaggerated sigh and held up my hands in defeat. "So. I met Dusty. Gave me a couple of laughs."

She nodded with a scowl of approval, if that was even possible. Somehow, all bizarre expressions with her were possible. "It's good for you. You certainly could use some laughs."

I sobered. "Yeah. Nightmares."

She shrugged and yanked the spear out of the target. "Nothing unusual for demigods."

"Real nightmares."

She stopped. Her face seemed to cloud over with anger. "You mean they actually happened to you before. Déja vú."

I nodded.

"I know what you mean," she said, fingering the side of her spear. The blue sparks seemed to jump right from her fingertips as her countenance grew even more sober. "Happens to me a lot. Now, that's something totally different."

I waited.

"You mind telling me what exactly they're about?"

I shrugged. "S'pose not. I saved Aiden's life when our house was burning down."

I suddenly felt a tingling sensation as our minds connected. Right--the empathy link. "But he was the one who set the fire," Thalia finished. "To...kill you."

I grimaced and nodded.

"Ungrateful wretch," Thalia burst out. "Why are b--" She cut herself off. "No, they're not. Not all..." She fell into a stormy, pensive state.

I sighed. "I'm guessing--no, I _know_ you're thinking about that boy Luke who was your friend before."

She said nothing, but it was the kind of silence that just cried out Yes.

I snorted in bitter laughter. "Speaking of which, you know, Dusty reminds me of Mikey."

She looked back up at me, and I was almost taken aback at how intensely electrifying her deep blue eyes were. "He's another reason you hate Aiden?"

I swallowed. "You probably can tell most of the story," I grunted, referring to our link.

Suddenly Thalia changed subjects so abruptly. "Can I take a look at your dagger?"

I raised a brow in confusion, but unsheathed my knife anyway and handed it cautiously to her. She took it with a nod and studied it grimly; even now, I was amazed at how the light seemed to just reflect off the smoky steel and come back radiating with a thrill.

"I knew it," Thalia announced. "Stygian iron."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"Well, technically," she said, "that means it's metal that comes from the realm of Hades."

* * *

**A/N: All right, I'll spare you the suspense. No, she is NOT a daughter of Hades, or of any of the Big Three, for that matter. But I bet you're all wondering how she got hold of a Stygian iron dagger. ;D And you still wondering about her parentage? Hint: Look back at her dream/flashback about the fire. There's a big clue buried in there somewhere.**

**So, ahem, little self-insert up there. Yes, my name is Katrina Mae, and I'm a singer, for those of you who haven't checked out my profile. I just won an online award for my recording of my rendition of "Memory" (I played the piano and sang), so that explains why I had the sudden urge to put it in. It just seemed to fit. The song, I mean. Actually, once in a while, I realized, I will start putting in a song of two that reflect(s) Tara's mood or life at that point. That might be interesting.**

***dances around in a little powow* Please, I beg of you, continue to review! What do you think, Darian? I know Dusty doesn't sound much like your character right now, but relax I'm working on it. XD**

**REVIEW!**

**~Katrina Mae**


	6. Chapter 6: War of the Roses

**A/N: SOOO sorry for the lack of updates. Sister came home from college for the entire month of December. That's all I can say. XD So I'm rewarding you with two new chapters for your patience!**

Chapter 6: War of the Roses

"Obviously, I ain't a Goth or an emo," I pointed out, beginning to bristle.

Thalia gave me a sly look. "No, and I 'ain't' a punk either," she retorted with a smiling frown. "T, you could be something you don't know you are."

"Well, I ain't a kid of Hades!" I insisted. "I don't smell like the dead or something!"

Thalia stopped. She nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, you're right." She shrugged. "Nico diAngelo smelled like the dead."

I cocked a brow. "He a kid of Hades?"

Thalia nodded again as she handed me back my knife, which I quickly sheathed again. "Uh-huh. Him and his sister Bianca, back two years ago. Bianca died before that. He...pops up sometimes--out of the ground."

I snorted. "Out of the _grave_, more like." I paused. "Then why'm I not claimed yet?"

"Hades is one of the Big Three," began Thalia. "Him, my dad, and Percy's dad. A long time ago, because their kids were so powerful and wreaking havoc across the world, they made a pact not to _ever_ have kids again." She laughed humourlessly. "Obviously, they all _forgot_ that promise. Percy, Nico, and I are a testament to that." Her amused expression quickly morphed back into her fierce scowl.

I kicked a pebble across the sand with the toe of my battered Converse. "Some dad, huh? Goes around having fun and then won't claim me. Oh yeah," I shouted at the ground, "I love you, Dad." I whipped out my knife and flung it fiercely at the ground, where it landed on its point and stood quivering in the sand.

Thalia laid a hand on my arm. I looked up: her eyes were filled with a pain like mine, but they were quickly clouded over with something in between anger and sadness. "I know," she said. She jerked her head toward the Big House. "Maybe you should talk to Chiron about this. He knows a lot more than we do."

I stared at her for a moment; then I bent down to pick up my knife and made to follow her. Then I stopped. "Never mind," I said abruptly. "Later." I hefted my dagger and threw it at a target, where it thunked loudly somewhere between the edge and the center.

Thalia looked back at me. She must have sensed my turmoil over the empathy link, because she didn't even bother to argue as I knew she normally would. "Okay," she said shortly. She turned around and went on up the hill by herself.

I walked over to the knife and jerked it out of the target; my eyes were constantly drawn to the smoky glint of the blade. Yeah, Hades. If he were really my dad, then how I hated him. I backtracked myself all the way to the other end of the arena, at the wall opposite the target, narrowed my eyes, and threw again. This time, it hit dead centre.

A throat cleared somewhere nearby. I whipped around.

It was Dusty, casually sauntering into the arena with his bow and quiver already slung over his shoulder in place of the black headphones around his neck. He tried to look as if he didn't notice the anger in my face or the target so fiercely attacked by my dagger, but obviously he had heard quite a lot, if not all.

"Uh..." He cleared his throat again and scratched his head, trying to be casual as he strung his bow and selected an arrow from his quiver. He shrugged. "You're right. You don't smell like the dead."

I snorted. "Yeah, that's a comfort. Then who is my dad?"

He fingered his bow thoughtfully. "Um," he said again, "I don't know."

I sighed as I jerked my knife out of the target and prepared to throw it again. I paused, then broke into a tiny smile. "You smell like soda."

He whirled in mid-shot. "What?"

T~T~T~T~T

"The food here sucks," Jack muttered.

I jumped out of my shoes and nearly dropped my plate of stale fishsticks. If I hadn't know the voice, I would have already unsheathed my dagger five seconds ago. I whirled. "There ye are," I sighed with relief, downing the last of my drink and tossing my empty plate and cup into the nearest garbage can. I stuck my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and followed him as he sauntered moodily out of the dining pavilion.

"Kids are giving me strange looks," he informed me, none too happily.

"'Cause you don't have a half-blood's aura," I replied. "Annabeth told me."

He grunted in reply. "Heard there's another 'mortal' round here during the summer, living in the Big House."

I thought back. "That'd be Rachel, their Oracle."

"Oracle?"

"Yeah. Spouter of prophecies and all that."

Jack swore under his breath. "Well, I ain't no spouter of prophecies. Heck, I can't even foretell the next minute of my life." He laughed bitterly. "Meanin'...I can't stay with you."

I stopped abruptly and grabbed his arm. He was still a centimeter or two taller than me, but I could look him in the eye. "Don't ye say stuff like that," I whispered. "Of course I'm going with you. Wherever you go."

He sighed and gestured in frustration. "T, ye can't always be moving around. You gotta find a place for yourself. And seems like this is it. The kids here are like you. You can fit in with them. I can't."

I snorted. "Yeah, the heck I can fit in. Annabeth was right; the Aphrodite girls are airheads. The Apollos and Demeters are just way to bright and happy for me. The Hermes twerps would steal my underwear if I closed my eyes for a millisecond. Besides, what's left for me? No one likes me or trusts me. They just slip away when they see me. And I can't go on hiding forever...my scars."

Jack reached out and gripped my shoulders tightly. "Don't _you_ ever say that," he said, matching my fierce whisper. "You are who you are. You're right, you can't go on hiding forever. You should be yourself...and be where you want to be."

"I want to be with you," I insisted stubbornly.

He shook his head and slowly let go of my shoulders; he ran a bony hand through his shaggy oil-black hair. He turned away slightly, and I watched the sternness of his profile against the dying sunset. "T," he began, "do me a favour."

I cocked my brow warily. "What?"

"Do what's best for you."

He quickly turned around and began walking down the hill away from the Big House, away from the camp, away from me.

Was I imagining it, or had his voice cracked?

T~T~T~T~T

Breakfast the next day was a funeral for me. Hardly anyone was present at the dining pavilion due to the biting cold, and those that had come hurried away after gobbling up their cereal and fruit. Jack was nowhere to be found; I found myself thinking bitterly that he'd holed himself up in his room in the Big House, refusing to come out and see me. I started at my own thoughts. Why was I being so immature? We were both mad at each other, which was definitely not new. We'd gotten over worse disagreements before. It couldn't be that bad. After all, what could be worse than Aiden?

"You're right, it's not too bad," said Thalia behind me.

I jumped. "You're so silent!" I complained. "Why d'you always give me the prickles on the back of me neck?"

Her mouth quirked into a smile, then back into a frown. "Don't worry. He doesn't understand."

I shrugged and turned back to my soggy cereal, shoving around the Fruit Loops around moodily with my spoon. "I just feel...worse than usual about it. I mean, because, if not for you, I'd be alone in this place chock full of people. Kinda weak of me. And I'm ashamed of it." I sighed and dropped my head into my hand, letting the last of my cereal finally dissolve into the mushy milk.

Thalia's customary frown deepened. "Everybody's got a weakness," she informed me, perhaps a tad irritably, but still with genuine, endearing concern. "Besides," she added, "there are other people who are going through things not unlike your life." She nodded toward the Athena table. "Like Sky."

I glanced up in the direction she had indicated. There was a thin girl seated near Annabeth and the rest of the Athena cabin, with the characteristic blonde waves, but she was at a little distance from her siblings. She had a large white bandage plastered across her neck. I noted with curiosity that she was dressed all in black and had a weird black chain-like bracelet around her wrist. She really looked like a Goth, but as I'd quickly learned from Thalia, it could be that she was anything but Goth.

The girl turned slightly toward us, and I got a chance to see her eyes: one blue and one grey. _Dang it_, I thought. Was everyone around here half-eyed?

Thalia apparently sensed my question. "It's a long story," she explained. "She was bitten by a ghoul almost two hundred years ago."

"A...ghoul?" I repeated slowly. "Two hundred...years ago?"

"Yeah." Thalia turned back to me and lowered her voice to a confidential tone. "I...can tell you later."

I nodded.

T~T~T~T~T

"...She got an Iris message from her twin brother Edward. He'd disappeared some time before that, and now he was asking for her help. So she went to the mountains, and she found him trapped there."

I cocked a brow. "Trapped? How? An avalanche? Then how'd he send her an Iris message?"

"It was a zone that was time-warped," said Thalia, her voice low, as she bent down to oil her bow. "When she got there, Edward was an old man."

I bit my lip to suppress the catch of surprise in my throat. "That's...bad."

"And he was dying," Thalia added, glaring ferociously at her bow when it refused to be oiled.

I stopped. "That's very bad."

"His dying wish was to see the sun. So she carried him out of the cave where he'd been trapped so he could see the sunlight. And he died there in her arms."

I sighed and laid my head in my hands. "You said something about ghouls."

"Yeah. Soon there were ghouls attacking her on the mountainside. She fought all of them off, with new strength from her anger, but one managed to bite her on the neck. That's what all the bandage is about."

"Yeah, but, that was _two hundred years_ ago," I emphasised.

Thalia shrugged with a moody glower at her glowing bow, which I swear almost seemed to grin back impishly at her. "She became immortal, and her wound is immortal, too," she summarised for me. "Every month on the date of that day, she starts to bleed again. I mean, she would have become a ghoul too, if Chiron hadn't saved her and used the power of the Hecate kids to help him lock the ghoul-y magic in a bracelet."

I remembered the weird chain-like contraption around her wrist. I nodded. Then I sighed again. "You're right."

Thalia jerked her head up, her electric blue eyes looking fierce but a little startled in the moonlight slanting in through her window in the vacant Zeus cabin. "What?" Then her expression smoothed as she reached out to me through our minds. "Oh, I see. Yes, it isn't so bad."

"At least Aiden's _human_," I snorted.

Thalia frowned and slowly shook her head at me. "Tar--I mean T...I don't think so."

I turned abruptly to her. "What d'you mean? He a monster?"

She shook her head a little harder. "He's a half-blood too."

I felt my heart shooting up from the bed and crashing through the ceiling. "What?"

"He beat you up pretty bad," Thalia began carefully, setting down her bow after succeeding at last in giving it some softness and shine. "Which means he's strong." She stopped, and I knew she was going to say _stronger than you_, but apparently thought better of it. I kind of appreciated that.

I shrugged. "Some humans are pretty strong."

"You're a half-blood. And you're abnormally strong." Obviously she was referring to my stunt when our house had burned down and I'd held up the roof.

I rolled my eye at her. "Thalia, he's the leader of a _gang_. Even human gangs really toughen 'emselves up."

Thalia shook her head with a small sigh and decided to switch tacks. "He knew all about the poison of the snake--I mean, monster that bit you."

"How are you so sure it was a monster?" I objected.

Thalia raised her eyebrows at me in a don't-think-I-can't-read-your-mind way. "Don't think I can't read your mind," she said, in fact. "You might not have told me yourself, but I know through our link that your eyes didn't use to be green."

I gaped at her. Then I shut my mouth abruptly when I realised what an idiot I was making myself. "Yeah. They used to be brown." I turned away with a fierce scowl and furiously brushed invisible dust off my black jeans. "Well, now they're green. So?"

"Well, personally, that proves something in my mind about you. But that's not the point. Aiden knew it was a monster that bit you, and he knew how to cure you."

I halted the protest automatically rising in me. I turned to look fully at her again. "Yes," I acknowledged slowly.

"Which means something else," Thalia continued. "Something even more dangerous."

I stared at her, dread starting to fill me.

"He _knows_ he's a half-blood. He knows that you didn't know."

I sensed her thoughts. "And he's been planning something freakin' bad for me," we said together. Well, except for the fact that I said _freakin'_.

T~T~T~T~T

And I thought my life had already screwed up as bad as it could get.

Now I knew Aiden was a half-blood--though Thalia and I couldn't figure out his parent--and that meant something terrible. He was powerful. Probably even more powerful than me.

And he wasn't just after me for...let's just say, happening to be a girl. Oh no, he knew who he was, and he was working for some evil force that wanted to use me...

...As a pawn.

And the fact that I was a girl was just a little side-tracked fact which Aiden liked to toy with. His main mission was to either win me or destroy me.

No, this hadn't been all guesswork. It was just all starting to become very obvious, for several reasons I'm too exhausted to explain. Exhausted of myself. Exhausted of my life.

Hades, it was past midnight. I half-expected a pack of harpies to spring out of the shadows at me at any moment now, but I was almost certain I wouldn't care if they killed me, anyway. I passed by every single row of cabins and the clustered forest up slope to the brow of the hill, where Thalia's pine tree (as she claimed it) stood guard, with the sleeping dragon Peleus nestled round it. I almost wanted the dragon to wake up and devour me.

I decided in a split second that that would be a bad idea. If I did die prematurely, then I wouldn't get to kill Aiden myself. Not that I actually meant _kill_ as in _kill_. But...oh, if looks could kill.

I wandered back listlessly through the moonlight and creaked open the door of the Hermes cabin. All seemed peaceful--my cabinmates snoring undisturbedly, someone using the bathroom and creaking about as quietly as she could, and someone rustling in the shadows as he tried to steal my toiletries _again_. I sighed and decided to let it go.

After about five minutes of staring about with my hands in my pockets, I suddenly realised the draft was pouring in and kicked the door shut. I made my way on tiptoe through the maze of kids clustered on the floor in sleeping bags--the many kids of the messenger and thief god--to my own spot in the dusty corner. As I lay back down, determined to face tomorrow, I felt something on my back.

Something long, thin, and rubbery. And _moving_.

I sucked in my breath at the same time that I heard the hiss. In a nanosecond I jacknifed into a sitting position and whipped out my dagger. There, writhing and dancing and hissing delightedly in the warm, dark folds of my sleeping bag, was a long green snake.

I let my reflexes take care of the rest. I'll spare you the revolting details, but pretty soon I had sliced up the invader of my privacy into a handful of not-so-neat pepperoni. The thing shrieked and hissed loudly as I exacted my butcher's punishment, but after being bitting by a giant snake-monster--a dracaenae, Thalia had called it--I wasn't about to be beaten again.

I stood slowly to my feet and found with dismay that I was trembling like a leaf. I told myself it was probably from the exertion, but I knew myself to take that lie. I was still afraid of snakes. Well, heck, who _isn't_ afraid of snakes?

I bent down with quick, abrupt movements and jerked up my blanket and shook it out to ascertain that no more garden snakes--which were rather unlethal but quite disturbing--were dancing with glee in my underwear. Instead, a small pink envelope with calligraphy on it fluttered down. I picked it up. There was a curlicued monogram of _SV_ embossed on it in heavy magenta ink; inside was a small slip of matching stationery bursting with a very familiar and very irritating scent of perfume. Written across it in perfect, fountain-pen script were the most infuriating words:

_You JERK._

_~Sofia_

"You _idiot_," I muttered to myself. The Aphrodite girl had just conveniently revealed herself to me.

I don't know why I did what I did. Ordinarily, I would probably let it go, but considering how much anger and confusion was boiling in me, I let my instincts direct me. Which, of course, is not always the best choice.

Not caring anymore if I was being noisy, I whirled out of the Hermes cabin while sheathing my dagger at the same time, leaving a very stinky mess behind me.

T~T~T~T~T

Fifteen minutes later, I was out in the stinging cold of the snowy evening again, my trusty old Converse having not creaked for one moment. The silence of the night had shrouded me.

I glanced back at the hot pink Aphrodite cabin shimmering beguilingly in the moonlit darkness. I supressed a grin. In approximately one minute or less--meaning very, very much less--Sofia would wish she'd never been born.

Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. But pretty close.

"Aaaaah!"

I indulged myself in a long, slow smile. Then I sauntered back to my cabin through the whispering snow as Sofia's voice rent the air.

**A/N: Hahahahahahahaha...............**

**Sky is IamAbotticelli's character. Thanks, IamAbotticelli! She comes up in the next chapter and the chapters after that.**

**REVIEW!**


	7. Chapter 7: Grave and Sky

**A/N: See?! I told you there'd be two chapters!**

Chapter 7: Grave and Sky

No one bothered to ask what all that icky blood was doing on my pants. No one bothered to ask why there was a big, messy, hairy tarantula pudding in the garbage can of the Aphrodite cabin.

No one even bothered to notice Sofia's dagger glares at me at breakfast. Not even I cared to notice.

"T..." Thalia began.

I turned to her, my green eye bright and wide in innocence. "What?"

"You've been up to something...," she said, her sentence unfinished.

I stared in mock confusion at her.

Thalia sighed and rolled her eyes at me. "T, I'm not deaf, dumb, and blind."

"Of course you're not," I agreed indignantly. "Whoever said you were?"

"Aargh," she grunted, and scowled at her glass of orange juice. "Forget it."

I smirked behind my hand and finished off the rest of my scrambled eggs.

"Well, I sort of wanted to talk about something else," Thalia began again.

I cocked a brow. "That's more like it. What about?"

"I'm leaving today."

It was all I could do to keep the egg in my mouth. (I'm afraid it actually did fall out of my mouth.) "What?"

"The Hunt is moving on," Thalia explained, leaning back and running a hand through her messy mop of jet black hair. Her silver circlet shone as it caught the rays of the sunlight. "My Lady Artemis wishes to keep this visit short."

I must have looked crestfallen. "But I've only just begun to get to know you."

Thalia shrugged. "I'm sorry. I wish I could stay, too." Her face hardened. "Well, if only camp were full of girls..." Her mouth turned into a tiny smile before returning to its original frown.

My distress was apparently visible. "If you leave, how'm I s'posed to get on?"

Thalia attempted to begin eating her breakfast, but she was forced to set down her spoon with a deep sigh. "There's Annabeth and Percy," she pointed out in her usual practical, no-nonsense tone.

I grimaced. "Yeah...but not you. I mean, no offense, I really like Annabeth and Percy, but they're different."

Thalia laid a hand on my arm. From the awkwardness of the gesture, I guessed it was a motion she didn't often do. "Don't worry, I will be back. I'm not sure when, but I will be back soon."

I thought. What was today? "Well...maybe you could gimme a rough estimate?"

Thalia smiled. "I'll be here by Christmas."

T~T~T~T~T

I stuck my hands in my pockets and breathed out heavily, blowing the annoying strand of dark mahogany hair from between my eyes. Up ahead, I could hear voices, and I saw the familiar flash of light gold hair as two Athena girls strolled toward their cabin. One had a graceful, loping gait, while the other seemed a little stiffer and tougher and more wary, but with a strange sort of feline grace. I recognised the first girl as Annabeth.

"Are you sure you're not staying?" Annabeth was saying. Concern seemed to fill her voice.

The other girl nodded. "I don't really belong here. I like traveling with the Hunters." She gave a little shrug and continued walking, taking long-legged strides whcih Annabeth was forced to match with a brisk trot. The girl's voice fascinated me--it was a little deeper than most, and it had a strong ring to it with an inscrutable tone that seemed to speak so much at the same time.

"All right..." Annabeth's voice trailed off. "When will you be back?"

Again the girl shrugged. "Whenever the Hunters are back."

Annabeth sighed. "All right. Be safe."

The girl half-turned, and I saw the black chain locket around her wrist. It was Sky.

Without thinking, I hurried forward, my footsteps crunching in the snow. Both girls looked up at me at the sound of my approach, which I had hardly bothered to cover.

"Oh, Tar--T!" Annabethe exclaimed, flashing me a weary smile. "Have you met Sky yet?"

I looked at them. I shook my head, unwilling to reveal that I already knew practically Sky's life story. "How're ye?" I greeted Sky with a grave nod.

She acknowledged me with a polite inclination of her head. "I see you a lot with Thalia," she noted, her tone turning slightly friendlier.

I nodded. "I hear you and the Hunters are all leaving today."

Sky nodded.

I shrugged. "Too bad you're going, too. Just the day we met."

Suddenly Annabeth caught her breath. "I know," she said. "Sky, what if you stay? You know, be with Tara--I mean T--and show her around camp, and help her through the ropes?" She turned to me. "Not that I don't mind helping you through, T..."

I held up my left hand. "I know. It's fine. You're busy, too." I half-turned to Sky.

Sky stared at both of us for a moment with a keen, calculating look in her blue eye. Then she abruptly shrugged. "Well, I guess there's no harm. I'm not officially part of the Hunt, anyway." She turned to me. "I hear you've been having some...fun with the Aphrodite cabin."

Annabeth's large grey eyes widened. "You mean you planted the tarantula in Sofia's bed?"

I discreetly shook my hair over my eye, but it was useless to conceal my expression before she saw it. "She put a garden snake in _my_ bed," I pointed out.

"Oh." She looked a little stunned. "Didn't hear that part of the story."

Sky had been studying me intently. "I think it serves her right."

I gave a shaky little laugh, one of those very rare expressions of enjoyment on my part. True to my nature, my laugh didn't last long. I gestured listlessly down at my pants. "I chopped it up like sausage. Remains of the battle lie plainly on my pants."

Sky covered her mouth with a hand, and some kind of light began to shine in her overly sombre eyes. I couldn't help smiling, too.

T~T~T~T~T

I had always skipped the campfire sing-along before, mainly because my voice sounded like a chicken's claw being scraped across a rusty metal car door. But the second, and very important, reason was that I would see and mingle with all the other kids at rather close range. It was different from training. In sparring lessons and dagger fighting, I had something urgent and pressing to focus on besides the kids milling about the arena behind me. At mealtimes, everybody was too hungry to do much else besides wolf down the lousy food--not to mention that I realised I'd eaten powdered eggs that morning.

But I had nothing better to do, and I wasn't so physically tired, so with a little internal shrug, I sauntered out of the Hermes cabin (sporting a newer pair of jeans, lent graciously by one of my cabinmates, so I wouldn't have to explain the snake remains on it in an embarassing scene in front of Sofia) and across the snowy clearing toward the glow of the bonfire at the other end of camp.

A throat cleared behind me. I'd already heard the familiar step behind me long before that prominent sound, but I had ignored the person following me. Now, however, I was compelled to stop, though I still didn't turn around.

"Sorry...about yesterday."

I stood stock still and waited, my hands still in my pockets.

"It ain't right of me to force you to stay or go anywhere in particular," Jack continued, coming a little closer until he was right beside me.

Slowly I turned to him. "But tha' means I would leave camp."

Jack shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe I could stay here, so ye get to stay safe and still be with me."

I raised my eyebrows.

"I know I ain't going to be able to stay too long," Jack said hastily, rubbing the back of his neck. "But...at least to think things out. Figure out what to do."

At last I nodded. "Sounds good to me."

We stood a long time on the brow of the hill just like that, standing ankle-deep in the snow side by side, gazing silently at the camp blanketed by white. It was a while before I remembered myself and quietly led him down to the site of the campfire.

We were a tad late, so we slipped into the back row of the ring of kids huddled on the somewhat drier, snow-free ground warmed by the rainbow glow of the bonfire. The flames were purple tonight, which, as Thalia had explained to me, represented tranquility.

When I peered over the heads of the other kids--which was not hard, considering my height--I was surprised to see Dusty up there among the kids performing on the other side of the fire. They were all singing and playing a song which I thought was distantly familiar.

_...Trying hard to reach out_

_But when I tried to speak out_

_Felt like no one could hear me..._

_I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly_

_I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky_

_And I'll take a chance,_

_Make a wish,_

_And break away..._

I'd never really loved music, particularly because my mother had been a stage performer and had always had a voice like a run-over cat's. But these kids--assumably Apollo kids--were pretty good. And the song was even better.

I glanced sideways at Jack; he seemed strange. His guard was down, and his dark eyes were shining in the reflective fire, as if his soul were aflame. His expression was just so foreign to me that I could hardly read it. He just seemed...free.

It was then that I realised what the song was all about.

I glanced in the other direction. Not too far away, seated between Annabeth and another Athena kid, was Sky, her grey and blue eyes flashing deeply in the light. I wondered what she was thinking.

She and Thalia were alike.

Thalia and I were alike.

All three of us had suffered death and betrayal.

But what did it all matter? What mattered was that I was safe, at camp, surrounded by people, _now_. And here with Jack. In the back of my mind, the thought came to me that perhaps our gang of Black Hearts had broken up. Either that, or one had risen to be the leader--probably Crispin, who was strong and tough for his age. If only Mikey hadn't died, I thought bitterly, he would be replacing me and Jack. He would be leading the boys.

And then another, more dreadful thing occurred to me.

What if the gang joined Aiden?

T~T~T~T~T

"You look unusually, er, shall I say, _happy_ today," Annabeth remarked as we walked briskly toward the arena early the next morning.

"I was...just thinking about the song last night," I admitted without ceremony.

"You mean, 'Breakaway' by Kelly Clarkson?" Annabeth guessed.

I nodded.

Annabeth turned toward me expectantly as we continued to walk. "What about it?"

"I was kind of wondering what would happen," I began slowly.

"Happen? If what?"

"If I broke away."

Annabeth faced me fully and studied my face. "I get the feeling that you haven't had an exactly peaceful life," she pointed out.

"Yeah. You could definitely say that," I snorted.

She sighed. "That's a good idea."

My expression brightened. "You think?"

She nodded. "Well, yeah," she said. "No worries anymore. You are _safe_ here at camp, T. Your past will not find you here."

If only that were true.

T~T~T~T~T

The sand flew up beneath my feet as I pranced about, trying to handle the awkwardly weighted sword in my fist while at the same time blocking fiery attacks from the blonde girl's strong, quick arms. I managed to deflect a strike, sending sparks into the air, before she finally disarmed me.

"Well, you're pretty good at what you do, I'll give you that," I said with a grunt, and swiped the sweat off my brow with my sleeve.

Sky raised a brow and retrieved my borrowed sword for me, which I took with a weary nod of thanks. "You're pretty tough too, _I'll_ give you that."

I shrugged.

Sky finally let the point of her sword rest in the hard-packed sand, lowering her voice as the hubbub of swords and voices continued around us--it was training period, and the kids were not too quiet going about it. "You're tough for good reasons," she said.

I looked up at her with a sudden movement. "What?"

"I can guess from your expression," she explained with a vague gesture, "that you're not too happy about things."

I snorted. "Let's politely call that an understatement."

"The same for me," she returned. She hefted her black sword by the hilt; it looked quite heavy, but her arms and wrists were corded with muscles. Freaking folly, two hundred _years_ of training would certainly make one strong.

She raised her head and opened her mouth to say something, but then froze in mid-sentence. She was staring at something up in the sky. Or something above me.

I whirled.

The kids were all staring at me, too.

Swirling above me, slowly forming in a black cloud, was a symbol over my head. It rounded itself and formed a dark globe, and shining in dark silver above it was the greek letter Alpha.

Then it faded.

The colour drained from Sky's already pale face. "Atlas?"

T~T~T~T~T

"Yes, it must have been Atlas," Chiron was saying with a sigh. Sprawled in the armchair across his by the fire, I rested my head in my hands in distraction and blew out my breath, watching the strand of dark hair leap out and then float back down in front of my face.

"Since the Titans were, well, exiled," Chiron continued to explain, "they have no known symbols. However, it is only sensible that you were claimed by your father Atlas, since the symbol was a globe. He is the carrier of the sky."

I still didn't face him, but my eye slipped in his direction from beneath my curtain of hair. First I thought I was a kid of the grave. Now I was the kid of a sky-carrier.

It was then that I remembered something. And everything snapped into place.

_"Just because you're a girl, ain't mean you're going to get it easy, T," said Jack, casually flipping his dagger over and over in the air. I was leaning listlessly across the table, watching the flash of the blade as it spun up and down, up and down, up and down._

_"What's that mean?" I replied. Absently I fingered the rough ends of my hair, which I had just cut the other day. It would take some getting used to the lack of big brown wavy ringlets down my back._

_Jack shrugged and slammed his dagger back inside his boot. He leaned forward. "Training."_

_I narrowed my eyes in a show of wariness, but I was more than game. "What sort of training?"_

_"Dagger-throwing. Running. Wrestling. Fighting, in general. All kinds."_

_I straightened and ran a hand through my hair. "Okay. I'm game. When does 'at start?"_

_He gave me a crooked smile. "Now."_

_We both got up at the same time, and silently he led me out of the kitchen into the living room, which was bare save the battered antique table where the boys counted their money, and the row of pallets bundled up and shoved unobtrusively in a corner._

_"First," he said, "we need to harden up your muscles." He placed a hand on my back and propelled me toward the centre of the wooden floor, where I stood a little awkwardly, watching his every move with my sharp green eyes. Yes, those green eyes that used to be brown..._

_"Just a couple of punches and kicks," Jack was explaining. "I wanna see where ye are. I'll give it to you a little easy first, just as a start. But not in the future." He started to bend around, and a look of fierce determination and concentration came over his face._

_I crouched defensively. It seemed to be my habit nowadays; I was always making myself look small, helpless, vulnerable, and then I would lash out like a tigress when my mother laid a hand on me. She usually overpowered me, but the last time..._

_I shook my head. It had always been hard for me to concentrate. Now I forced myself to watch Jack and his every movement. He was slowly, subtle, like a cat. And so was I._

_We threw a couple of punches at each other; it was obvious that he was hardly bothered by my blows. Somehow this angered me, and I gritted my teeth and began to punch harder. Once I caught him wince, but he was still swift and silent and often caught my by surprise._

_Suddenly he whipped around me and pulled me down by my denim jacket, and I caught my breath. I rolled over and heard the sickening rip of cloth as the back of my jacket and my shirt came away. Enraged, I jacknifed upright and sent him a flying kick that thwacked him solidly in the chest. He landed heavily on his back with an oof! and looked up at me._

_"You tore my jacket!" I shouted, stalking up to him. He could only stare at me, stunned. I bent down and picked him up by his own jacket, which I was direly tempted to shred to pieces._

_"T..." Some kind of panicked light flickered for the briefest moment across his eyes. I looked down._

_His feet were off the ground._

_I'd lifted him about half a foot off the floor._

_With a gasp, I dropped him, and he rolled into a corner with another grunt. In a flash he was on his feet again, brushing himself off, but I could tell the session was over._

_Neither of us could speak for a moment. Then, slowly, Jack laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Congratulations," he said softly. "You just won yourself a leather jacket. I'll get it for you personally."_

I was strong. Abnormally strong. So it all fit that I was the daughter of Atlas.

T~T~T~T~T

The problem was, although there were many cabins for every single minor god and goddess, there were no cabins at all for demi-Titans. I took in the wary glances of my Hermes cabinmates and growled in frustration. It seemed I would have to sleep outside in the snow and get eaten by the harpies, after all.

Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned slowly to see Jack's silhouetted profile in the moonlight. I turned away again with my arms crossed defiantly over my chest, and I leaned back against the side of the cabin with a rather cross expression. For a moment, it felt almost good to be angry again.

"I'm guessing," began Jack, "that you don't want to stay."

He could always read my mind. I wondered sarcastically if he was a kid of Hecate. Impossibility of impossibilities.

I shrugged and gave him a humourless laugh. "Obviously."

He studied me closely. At last he nodded. "Shall we leave...tonight?"

I nodded too in reply. "Sounds good to me. I'll tell Annabeth."

He laid a restraining hand on my arm. "No. Let's just leave by ourselves."

I looked up at him for the first time that night. "All right," I said softly. "Let's make it quick an' silent."

He breathed a small sigh of relief. "Where? The pine tree?"

"Yeah," I said. "Same time. Got nothing to bring, so it should be easy." I stopped. "Where're we goin'?"

"Anywhere the road takes us."

As I peered up at him through the strands of hair falling over my face, I saw his shadowed features suddenly brighten in a slow, small smile.

It was the first time he had ever smiled.

"I gotta go get my stuff now," he mumbled, and turned away. I watched his back as he hurried down the clearing toward the Big House again. I kind of wondered what "stuff" he could be getting--maybe toiletries and food he had thieved from the pavilion. That Jack.

"What're you doing out so late?"

I jumped at the sudden voice. It seemed I was letting down my guard too late nowadays.

I narrowed my eye at Dusty's face in the window of the Apollo cabin across from me. "What are _you_ doing up so late?" I shot back.

He shrugged and frowned in confusion. "I heard some voices, so I got up. You know, the harpies _are_ going to catch you one of these days."

I couldn't help breaking into a smile at the concern in his youngish voice. I shook my head and laughed a little. "You..." My voice trailed away. Abruptly I turned away and slipped round the corner of the Hermes cabin, breathing deeply.

How I would miss Dusty.

T~T~T~T~T

The needles of Thalia's pine tree aired a sweet scent that seemed strangely wistful and hopeful to me. I wondered if it was just me.

I kicked a loose pebble from my path and watched it plonk down the hill and then roll through the moss to its fate somewhere on the abandoned highway below. Why was I leaving? Simply because I was the kid of some crazy Titan who was the enemy of the gods, and therefore I was the enemy of all demigods?

Right.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. I knew that the minute I stepped across the border of camp, I was not coming back. I would have to face the world, face the mortal dangers, face Aiden, face death. But at least I had Jack.

My thoughts were smashed to smitherines by an abrupt cry to my far right. I jerked around in a full 360-degree sweep, my body tense and every muscle pulled taut in anticipation. Already my hand was creeping back toward the dagger at my back. Then, slowly, cautiously, as I would normally do, I dropped to a crouch and inched forward, keeping my feet flat and silent as I crossed the mossy earth riddled with needles. I heard a rustle, and another shout.

Then a gunshot blasted in my ears.

I forgot all discretion at that moment. I jacknifed upright and pounded toward the source of the shot, my heart thudding against my chest. The wind sliced like daggers against my face and through my clothes, as if urging me onward. My gut twisted painfully, and I knew something was terribly wrong.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

I was standing now before the border of the forest, overlooking the slope connecting to the highway snaking round the base of the hill. I almost sobbed in frustration, my mind still racing at a thousand meters per hour, and sagged against the rough, sharp bark of the nearest tree. And felt something behind me.

I whipped around. A long, dark smear of liquid glistened in the moonlight where it dripped from the tree before me. Tentatively I reached forward a hand and touched it: it was thick and hot. It was blood.

Jack's blood.

**A/N: Yeah-huh, Atlas' kid. And why did NONE of you guess? Muwahaha. Sorry, I've been evil. I gues my "clues" have been too obscure. But I did give you a big hint--one of the kids who died in the original PJO canon was T's sibling. And who were those kids? Bianca diAngelo (Hades--nah, T doesn't smell like the dead), Zoe Nightshade (Atlas--yes!!!), Charles Beckendorf (Hephaestus--another possibility for T's parentage), Michael Yew (Apollo--no way, T can't sing), and Silena Beauregard (Aphrodite--another possibility, because some people like to write delightful stories about Aphrodite kids who are tough, but it's just not here).**

**Avalonfreak, be honored! Your character Colin is COMING UP SOON!**

**REVIEW!**


	8. Chapter 8: Lured

**A/N: Hiya, all! Sorry for the delay, guys. It turns out I may be back from my New Year's Eve concert tonight, so I won't be able to check my reviews and messages tonight. Anyway, I decided last night to just sit down and write. That means I'm updating Black Light, Dearest, and Blood Ice. And I have a new Maximum Ride fic up called Flash.**

Chapter 8: Lured

I stared in horror at the wicked crimson liquid dripping down my fingers. Then I saw the note in the tree, stuck there by a dagger still quivering in the air from recent impact. Gingerly I took the note, tearing off a corner where it was stuck under the mysterious blade. I squinted to read it in the faint moonlight.

_You have three days to come get him. Or else._

There was no name, no reference to Jack, but I knew it was Jack who'd been taken. And I knew that dagger: Aiden.

My breath came in quick, short gasps. I stood there, frozen to where I was standing, the tree behind me washed in blood and me bathed in the searing moonlight that scathed the guilt in my heart. Why did I feel like I had let down Jack? He was supposed to be here with me, we were supposed to be happy together, going wherever the road would take us...and then this. Just when I thought I would finally be able to break free from my old life in Britain, from my not being accepted in the world of demigods for being a demi-Titan, just when I thought my life would finally be perfect and free...it flipped upside down on me. The ghosts of the past continued to haunt me, even when I ran away from them.

Then I returned to my self, and without thinking, my legs moved, and I found myself running, running, running. I rushed past the pine tree and down the hill and onto the road, the bloody scrap of paper still clutched tightly in my hand to my chest.

Where I would go, I had no idea. Wherever the road would take me, I hoped it would lead to Jack. Wherever my path would end, I prayed to high Olympus--for the first time--that it wouldn't be too late.

T~T~T~T~T

The rain was pouring down on me, turning the melting snow into puddles of muddy slush beneath my feet. I sloshed through the mess and pressed on blindly, trusting only my instincts to lead me to wherever Jack might be.

Suddenly I stopped, every muscle in my body tensed. I sensed something--or _someone_--close behind me. I surrpetitiously slid out my dagger from the sheath strapped to my back, then cautiously took a few steps forward again. I didn't hear a sound, but I just knew the presence was coming closer and closer, pressing in on me, ready to pounce--

"Looking for somebody?"

I whirled just in time to see the barrel of a pistol aimed between my eyes, fully loaded and cocked. I slowly raised my gaze to the person holding the gun.

"Who are you?" I demanded. "And what do you mean by shooting me, you jerk?"

The young man lowered the gun a fraction but didn't relax his finger over the trigger. "There's a difference between shooting you and threatening to shoot you," he said smoothly.

With a frightful start, I recognised the English accent which I'd missed here in America for the past few days. Despite myself, I was compelled to peer up through the pouring rain and mist and look at him closely. He was impressively tall, almost as tall as Aiden, I thought with a twinge of pain, and had the finest bronze skin and deep hazel eyes to match his even, light brown hair.

"Ye didn't answer my first question," I said obstinately, at the same time backing away by a step and furtively fingering the hilt of my dagger behind my back.

The young man followed my every step and pointed the gun up at my head again aggressively. "You're not going anywhere," he barked. He motioned impatiently with his gun toward a copse of trees. "Over there. In the forest."

I glared at him. "I ain't going nowhere with you. Not until you tell me who ye are and whatever slick business you may be in."

"I 'ain't' telling you anything," he replied calmly. He jerked his head even more impatiently toward the trees. "Now do as I say, or I'm not afraid to use this pistol. I've grown up with it all my life."

"So have I, with a dagger," I sneered back. I whipped it out before me and began to back away again, one foot behind the other.

He began to walk forward after me. "Hold it right there."

For some weird reason, I wasn't afraid of his gun. Sure, I could get killed, but why in the world of freaking frogs would I let a mysterious, handsome stranger just shoot me in the head without knowing who he was or even _why_?

"I'm not afraid to use this knife, either," I warned him. I lunged at him, when my heel caught on the edge of a pothole, and at the same time he yanked at the trigger. I caught myself, then fell heavily into the muddy crater in the road, utterly disgusted at myself. I sat up carefully and fished around in the murky rainwater for my dagger, when I noticed the streaks of red running down my sleeve.

The stranger reached down and yanked me up to my feet. "This time, I really hope you won't refuse," he said, and dragged me off to the forest.

I must have gone into some kind of stupor, because when I shook myself awake again, I was leaning against the rough bark of a tree with a blanket over me, next to a crackling campfire, with the stranger observing me keenly from across the flames. His cheekbones and nose were defined strongly by the shadows cast by the fire, making him look even more wickedly attractive.

I suppressed a groan and tried to shift myself. My clothes were still muddy, but they were half-dry, which was better than soaked. At least I was warm, I thought. I glanced down and saw that my black leather jacket had actually been taken off and the right sleeve of my shirt torn off to expose the bullet wound which this cookoo person had given me. It hurt like crazy, but at least it was clean and neatly bandaged to compensate for the pain.

"Who _are_ you?" I asked, a bit softer than before. My voice was hoarse and rough.

"Colin," he replied simply, and continued to gaze at me.

I squirmed, wondering if he was going to stay up all night just watching me. "What did you mean by doing _this_ to me?" I demanded, gesturing at my bandaged arm.

"You were being...incorrigible," he said, shrugging.

I found myself studying his features, how his light brown hair tickled just past his ears, how his eyes were a mixture of curiosity, sadness, anger, and a little bit of something much more unreadable. Something evil.

"You are very...complex," I blurted out. Dang it, why had I said that?

"You are very aggravating," he returned calmly.

I narrowed my eyes at him. It was a little difficult, I found to my dismay, to feel angry at him; however, I still distrusted him.

"I asked you who ye are. Why don't you want to know who I am?" I asked, my voice showing only pure surprise.

He looked straight at me. "That's because I already know who you are." He gave me a slow smile.

I sat there and stared at him, confusion welling up inside me. All of a sudden, I felt weak and numb and tired, and all I wanted was to get away from his luring smile and to rest and to find Jack. I shifted and rearranged the blanket.

Colin's hand shot out for his gun.

"No need for that," I snapped. "I ain't runnin' anywhere with an arm like this." Well, maybe I would, if only I weren't so cold and tired.

"I'm not taking any chances," he replied coolly. "I'm a good shot, and you know that." He cocked the gun and pointed it at me, but continued to just sit there, calmly warming himself and watching me.

I grumbled some curse under my breath and hit the sack. Well, hit the tree, more like. It's not a pretty sight when you see your ridged back after sleeping a long night against a tough oak tree, but I pretty much had no choice. If I moved another foot away, I was going to get shot again, and I probably wouldn't wake up again after that.

But I doubted that.

As I dropped off to sleep, my last thought was, _He's not a kidnapper. Why do I get the feeling he's got something tricky to do with Aiden?_

**A/N: Yay! Thanks for the wonderful new charrie Colin Ashworth, Avalonfreak! And don't worry; Dusty and Sky will show up again in the next chapter.**

**If you notice, it was kind of short. It's for impact, peoples. The next chapter will be long again. :D**

**PLEASE REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! *freaks out and runs to the kitchen to have hot raspberry chocolate***

**~Katrina Mae**


	9. Chapter 9: Shrink Session

**A/N: Sorry for the delay. I've been grieving the recent loss of a best friend.**

**Um...it's been a while since I picked up the story, and I've been feeling pretty bummer these days, so please excuse it if it sounds ratty...no, really. I hope you like the ending, though...oh, and Dusty and Sky will show up in the next chapter, promise.**

**So, um, enjoy...**

Chapter 9: Shrink Session

Some minute sound of hardly any significance in my entire life woke me from a deep and troubled sleep. I was both grateful and cranky to be up. At any rate, I bolted into a sitting position and instantly regretted it when my arm protested sharply.

I caught sight of Colin's back as he bent over the fire, busily cooking something and clearing away supplies into a backpack I hadn't noticed there before. _Idiot_, I thought scathingly to myself. _You didn't even bring your things._

"Would you like sausages or eggs?" Colin proffered me without even so much as glancing back at me.

What a stark contrast. The previous night he had been waving a gun in my face and yelling like a kidnapper (well, so it was a gross exaggeration, but only half of the second part, so beg your pardon), and now he acted as if he didn't care in the whole wide world whether I bolted off into the forest or not, for all the trouble of intimidation that he'd gone through.

As it happened, he didn't have to as much as show me a barrel to keep me there. He simply turned around, and in the daylight, he was stunning. Beautiful. His deep hazel eyes held my gaze for a full minute.

Ordinarily I would have snapped back something like, "I can take care of myself, kidnapper," but as it was, I was lost in the intensity of his gaze and could hardly grasp at one shred of a coherent thought. Instead I said something superbly stupid which resembled, "Where the hell did you get eggs?"

He gave me a mysterious half-smile in response. "You can find them anywhere," he said loosely, and leaned closer.

I pressed my lips firmly together, unsure whether to scoot away or hold my ground. I was drawn uncontrollably to his warmth, and yet it all felt...wrong. I was confused. For the first time in my life, I had no idea who I was, what I was doing, and what I was even thinking. And yet it felt sort of right at the same time. What the heck, I'd lost my mind.

"Sausages," I said loudly, breaking the moment.

He drew back slowly, fluidly, and very calmly. He then handed me a plastic plate with steaming spicy sausages just as slowly, fluidly, and calmly. Then he took his seat opposite mine on the ground across the fire with his own food even more slowly, fluidly, and calmly.

It was all infuriating.

I was determined to get through this meal quickly and silently, but I made the one mistake of glancing up at him again, and immediately I fell into that spell again. I fumbled about for words, so uncharacteristic of me, the snappy and sharp and bossy and leaderly T. "Well, um, so, uh, how--how old--exactly--are you?"

"Nineteen," he said placidly. "You are seventeen."

I felt like this was a shrink session.

Some of my old snap came back, but only for a moment. "Yes, I am, and why that's important to know I have no idea."

"You were the one who brought it up," he pointed out quite correctly.

I grunted in frustration at myself. "Why are you doing this? Who--who..._are_ you?"

He did not reply for a long moment, but simply stared at me with those wonderfully, alarmingly powerful eyes of his. At last he spoke. "What is it that I'm doing?"

I shook my head forcefully. All sorts of unwanted thoughts and feelings of anger and confusion and presuppositions and fear and hatred and jitters were scurrying up and down my spine right now. "Helping me?" I answered, more as a question. "Or kidnapping me? I--I...I just--don't know."

He set down his plate on the ground at his feet and leaned closer toward me. "That is what you have to decide," he said simply. "Whether I am helping you or harming you. Then that will answer your question."

"Well, if you're helping me, then why the hell won't you just tell me?!" I yelled. I turned around in search of a tree to punch, but unfortunately none was conveniently near enough without my falling over on the way to it, so I had to content myself with mashing my fist against my knee.

He did not reply. Instead he smiled.

T~T~T~T~T

_"T?"_

_"Yeah?" I hollered over my shoulder. "I'm in the kitchen. What?"_

_"Um...could you come...over here...for a sec?"_

_I sighed heavily, turned off the rusty stove, and pushed the pot toward the back just for safety measures before stumping out of the kitchen into the dumpy living room. Jack was seated--or rather hunched--on the ratty couch that had come with the abandoned house, and he was actually practically biting his nails in agitation._

_"What?" I snapped. I had not had a particularly good day, and I wasn't about to hide that from anyone._

_"Look," he said, "if this is not the right time to break the news--"_

_I sighed and rolled my eye heavenward. "Good grief, Jack, you've lost a button. Is that it?"_

_He stared, gaped, and nodded. "Well, actually, two buttons--no, three." He frowned in dismay as he looked down at himself and counted on one hand._

_I threw back my head and laughed. "Then what's all the biting nails about?"_

_"I know you didn't have a good day," he said simply._

_"Oh." I stopped and tried (unsuccessfully) to shrug nonchalantly. "Oh, that."_

_"Yeah."_

_"It's nothing."_

_"No, really, T. Ye got something to say, tell me."_

_I shrugged again and dug into my back pocket, where I kept my portable sewing kit in a small, flat box the size of a photo locket. I busied myself threading the biggest needle with sturdy black thread, even whistling a little, just avoiding the subject. I was kneeling closer to Jack and picking up one of the buttons from his palm when he abruptly closed his hand over them._

_I started back and quickly slipped into a scowl. "What?"_

_"T," he said evenly, "you got to tell me. I know you'll feel better if you do."_

_I grimaced. "Do I really 'got' to tell you?"_

_He raised his eyebrows at me. "I think so."_

_I sighed and sat back on my heels, resigned. Absently my fingers played with the end of the thread dangling from the needle. "Okay, I saw a woman in the street."_

_He didn't get it. "Which woman?"_

_"Just a woman, no one I know," I snapped. I lowered my voice. "But...she looked like...like _her_."_

_"Oh." Understanding dawned in his voice._

_"I hated her, but I loved her," I poured out, my voice barely a whisper. "I can't believe...don't understand...how...I could have done such a thing. It was...stupid. And...I deserve hell."_

_"Your mother was cruel to you," Jack reminded me. "Besides, it ain't your fault. You were only trying to protect yourself. Anyone, _anyone_ would understand that."_

_I shook my head vehemently, but my throat closed before I could say anything else. I just sat there, shaking my head like a madman._

_Jack's long fingers reached out and grasped my hand in his, squeezing it with the spicy warmth of his skin. He pulled me up closer to the foot of the couch and leaned down so that his head was bent over mine. "It's nothing to worry about."_

_I swallowed hard and held out my hand. Quickly he dropped a button into it, knowing that I would positively freak out if I had nothing to do, and showed me the cuff of his jacket._

_I let my cropped hair fall in my eyes as I bent my head diligently over my sewing. I studiously avoided his piercing gaze._

_"T, it ain't your fault!" he finally burst out._

_It took all my strength of will not to draw back my fist and punch him in the face at that very moment. We were so close, closer than family, but sometimes he just got so aggravating. "You weren't there," I retorted harshly. With a jerk, I knotted the thread and snapped it just as harshly as my voice was._

_"You are so stubborn sometimes," he sighed, sitting back._

_"Look who's talking," I shot back more morosely now than angrily. I tugged at his hand and attempted to pry loose another button, but he wouldn't budge._

_"Not until you promise me you'll never blame yourself again," he said solemnly._

_I burst into a bitter laugh. "Using _buttons_ to blackmail me into promises?" I gasped. "Jack, puh-lease!"_

_He broke into a grin and shrugged. "It's the only thing that works at the moment. Improvisation is the key."_

_Now I was laughing for real. Breathlessly I tried to tear his hand open, but he only continued to stare smugly at me._

_I leaned back, laughing, and threw up my hands in defeat. "All right, if that will make you happy. I won't mention it again."_

_"No, that's not it," he pursued obstinately. "I want you to not blame yourself. At all."_

_I hesitated. "All right," I said, slowly, at last. "I...promise." I gulped hard after that lie._

_Jack already knew I was lying, but he knew he was only makng me feel better. And he was right. It worked._

_A smile crept up at the corners of my mouth. I held out my hand again. "I don't say this often, Jack," I declared, "but now I'm asking for it. Please?"_

_With a sly grin, he open his hand and gave me all the remaining buttons. Suddenly he fell on his knees from the couch. I opened my mouth to demand if he was okay, was anything broken or something, if he could still do the karate chop, when he pulled me closer. "I really want you to forget about this," he told me. "I don't like it when you're angry."_

_I laughed, more uneasily this time. "Hell, Jack, I'm always angry."_

_He leaned back a bit and gave me a can't-deny-that look. "That's true. But not angry with _yourself_. I don't like seeing you beating yourself up over nothing."_

_I rolled my eye, letting him know that I desperately contended that 'nothing', but he was resolute. I gave it up._

_"Listen, what will make you feel better?" he asked anxiously._

_I shrugged and bent over my work again. "Dunno." I quickly knotted the second button in place and leaned back against the couch. "Have any suggestions?"_

_"How 'bout this?"_

_Without warning, he slowly reached forward and took my face in his large hands, drawing me closer to him. He slanted his head ever so slightly to the side, and he closed his eyes; then his mouth found mine. I was so totally shocked that I dropped the needle in the rug, smashed the sewing kit with my hand, and froze, unable to resist. At first our lips brushed for only the briefest moment; but he didn't draw back just yet--instead, he pressed deeper, until I could feel him breathing into me. It was so kind, so soft, so gentle, and yet it was steadily growing stronger; his hands were strong and supple, so flexible, but able to draw my head closer into his. And then it hit me like an earthquake: it felt so _good_. I didn't dare draw him nearer with my own arms, but I kissed him back, very softly, very tentatively, like a child's first step._

_He didn't push it, but I could feel the glow there. It was not a raging, passionate fire like the times when Aiden tried to kiss me; those were dangerous. This was soft, mild, but strong. It was just what I needed. It was so...Jack._

_He pulled back, and I sucked in a deep breath. I didn't realise until then that I'd been holding my breath all along._

_I looked up at Jack through my one eye. My hair had fallen in my face, over my scarred brow, and gently he brushed away the errant lock of hair from my eye and tucked it behind my ear. When he returned his gaze to me, I could see the warm fire crackling behind those dark eyes, that ecstatic leap of heart. If I'd had a thermometer there with me to prove it, I would've sworn the room had risen fifty degrees. In Celsius. Jack smiled._

_Slowly, unsurely, but ever hopefully, I smiled back._

**A/N: So, um, yeah. *sly smile* This is my favorite part of the story ever.**

**If you're confused what all this business is about T's mom, well, READ ON. You'll find out at the end. If you can already guess what happened, feel free to tell me your guess.**

**Please review. =)**

**~TOIMI**


	10. Chapter 10: I Top the Record of Idiots

**A/N: Heyyy all! Sorry for not updating in a while on this story...I got kind of stuck, I have to admit. And also, I chewed myself out worrying about my bf getting flooded in NC (but nothing happened, which just goes to show that worriers don't get anything done XD). But thanks to all my fans, especially Lavanya and Darian, for their infinite patience. So here's the next chapter!**

Chapter 10: I Top the Record of Idiots

"Did ye know that your nonsense gives me a whiplash?"

Colin said nothing at my outburst, but simply cocked a brow in my direction. "We should get going soon," he announced, totally ignoring me.

I bristled. "And just who _are_ you to be tellin' me-"

"Friend or foe, right?" he broke in gently. "That's up to you to decide."

I made the mistake of looking into his mystifying light brown eyes and immediately found I was floundering about stupidly, trying to remember what my name was.

Forcibly I broke the connection. "Now what kind of help, exactly, are ye offering me?" I snapped to cover up my lack of composure. I took a deep breath, and some of the crack in me returned. "A bullet wound?"

Colin shrugged nonchalantly. "I can take you directly to where you're headed."

"Uh-huh." I studiously avoided his eyes and turned my back on him, busying my fingers with my ratty shoelaces. "Like ye even know where I be going."

"Actually, I do."

I realised even just listening to his voice was almost as big a mistake as looking into his eyes. I had to admit-albeit shamefacedly now-that everything about him was just so darn beautiful.

"So what, ye have magic map that'll take me to Hades?" I quipped.

"No."

There was such a deadly long pause that I had to turn and look at him. I tried to stare him down-but the unexpected intensity of his gaze overwhelmed me.

He smiled again, and it made me chill in the spine. "I have a password."

T~T~T~T~T

It was a full three hours later, and I was still being an idiot.

I mean, why the heck was I following _ stranger_-who just so happened to have _shot_ me in the arm-into a completely unknown town, into a completely suspicious building? And what was this blazing business about passwords?

I glanced about cursorily and was satisfied that we had stepped into a normal-looking coffee shoppe. Still, I fingered the dagger at my back, just in case he tried anything funny. Then again, if this place itself was a trap, I doubted I'd be able to fight off more than three experienced attackers-maybe four, with a kilo of luck.

"Do you want anything?" Colin asked me then.

I gave him the death glare; for some reason I couldn't hold it, and I just shook my head. My rumbling stomach contradicted me completely. Smiling that alluring and creepy smile of his, Colin dug into his pocket and paid the cashier for a couple of donuts for me and him.

I slumped over after him to the booth, tense and wound up like a clock. Was he truly a foe? Or could he be a friend, who was pretending to be in on Aiden's ring but actually wanted to help me? For I knew for certain now he was involved with Aiden. But why would he want to help me? He knew absolutely not one nut of me. And this all brought me back to the most important, pressing issue of all.

What had Aiden done to Jack? Why was he drawing me to himself?

I frowned. Vengeance was hardly uncharacteristic; but to possibly _send_ somebody to find me and haul over to him...if Colin _was_ on his side...no. This had to go deeper. Ever since I'd stumbled into all this messy half-blood business, I'd had a heavily unsettling feeling that Aiden's pursuit of me was spurred by more than a love affair. Thalia had told me he must be a half-blood himself. A wild thought occurred to me-could he be my brother?

I shuddered.

"Why aren't you eating?" Colin glanced up from his drink and looked directly into my eyes, holding them, looking almost...solicitous. I swallowed and shook my head a tiny bit to clear it, but still it was difficult to remember what to do with my lungs. I broke away from his gaze and focused on my food instead. Gods, it seemed I hadn't eaten in three weeks.

Colin was visibly watching me wolf down my meal with a hint of amusement. I had neither heart nor mettle to attempt another glare at him.

"So you came all the way from GB to this rat hole?" he said affably.

I narrowed my eyes and looked up for the briefest possible moment-that seemed to work; there was no dizziness or shortness of breath at seeing his beautiful face that millisecond. "You came over from GB to this rat hole, too," I pointed out testily. I shook my head in disgust. "As if ye don't already _know_ everythin' 'bout me by now."

"Well, I don't."

"Uh-huh. Ye just said ye did. Last night."

"I said I know who you are," he corrected me gently. "I didn't say I know _about_ you."

I muttered unintelligibly under my breath. Like there was any difference in that at all. "Whatever," was all I was able to say.

Finally he seemed to get the message that I preferred a lot more to clam up than to spill my guts to him. He leaned back, already finished, and quietly observed me as I made quick work of my meal.

Beneath the empty surface, my mind was racing. I had to get away from him-but that seemed so hard. Just being two feet from him made me senseless and unable to think straight. Dimly a thought of Chiron, Dusty, and Annabeth flashed across my brain. Thalia was long gone, away with the Hunt; there was no way I could contact her. Now the others at camp...I weighed my options. Maybe Sky-? The wild hope that flared immediately died down, defeated. Yes, she was skilled and seemed to have her wits about her, but she was with the Hunt as well.

"Er...I'm finished," I announced with audible reluctance.

He nodded, satisfied.

"I'm goin' to the john," I added with certainty. My brain was tingling now with an idea-and one that was not too bad, if I did say so myself.

"Of course."

Colin followed me right up to the door. I shot him a glare, and he decorously took a step back, but gave me a warning look with raised eyebrows. I rolled my eyes at him in pure disgust and stepped inside.

I checked the windows. They were high and long, but rather narrow-maybe I could do it. I tested the baseboards: they were too noisy and rickety. My mind shifted immediately to my second idea. Annabeth had told me before about IMs, which were _not_ instant messages but rather Iris-messages. All I needed was water, light, some reflection, a rainbow-

But there was no rainbow. Again I was stymied.

Still, there was no harm in trying.

I fished into a bunch of my numerous pockets (an asset when it came to carrying around a fanknife, a roll of string, and some bullets just in case I fell upon a gun and were compelled to use it). At last I came up with a golden drachma which Chiron the horse-man had given me. Now for that water...

I yanked open the nearest faucet at hand, stuffed a thick wad of the cheap brown paper towels down the drain to stop it, and let the burning hot water fill the sink to brim. Now, while it was still steaming, I held the flat, shiny side of my dagger so that it caught the bright daylight from the window and directed it roughly at the mirror over the sink. The beam in turn bounced off the glass and into the mist.

Slowly but surely, a seven-strand rainbow shimmered into existence. My heart leaped.

Quickly now I tossed the drachma into the rainbow; it sank and disappeared. "Dusty, Camp Half-Blood."

It was my first attempt at an Iris-message like this, and hey, it was going pretty well.

Quite suddenly Dusty's face materialised before me in the midst of the steaming rainbow. He looked stunned and a little shaken, as if I had jumped out of the bushes and he'd had to leap back to avoid crashing into me. Which was probably what happened, judging just from his expression.

"Ta-T!" he exclaimed. "Um, what are you doing in a bathroom?"

I put a finger to my lips to make him tone it down. "Listen, no time to explain-I'm in trouble-gotta escape from 'ere. There's this stupid creepy guy makin' me follow him. I-"

"Making you follow him?"

I sighed impatiently. "Yes, hyptonisin' me or whatever, but he's with Aiden...I mean, with the bad guys."

Dusty interrupted me again. "Where _were_ you? We've been looking all over for you...and that blood...I thought-"

"Aiden's got Jack," I said sombrely. "I'm goin' after 'im."

Dusty's mismatched eyes widened. I could tell his mind was already kicking into gear, planning his packing and how he was going to do this.

"I dunno how far I am," I said, frustrated with myself for not having paid closer attention. "This crazy nut dragged me through the forest, an' now we're in a different town. I'm in the john of a coffee shoppe. It's a pretty deserted place, hard to miss-now just get yer butt over here-I'm gettin' out o' here-"

"On it!" Dusty yelled, and swiped his hand through the mist. The rainbow shimmered and then disappeared.

There was a sharp rap on the door. "Are you done yet?"

I shuddered at his silky voice filled with concern. I had to close my eyes and stop the thrembling of my hands-he was just so...

_STOP IT!_ I screamed at myself. For some silly reason, I pressed my thumb against the edge of my dagger, and the pain and the smell of fresh blood suddenly restored my senses. Rapidly, before I could change my mind or fall under his spell again, I crossed the tiled bathroom, leaped easily onto the door of a stall, and swung it out-luckily, it swung all the way around. I creaked back and forth impatiently a few times, gaining momentum, and then on the fifth turn I stretched out my hands and made a wild leap for the window. My sneakered toes crashed violently against the rusty, unused AC unit. But that mattered no more. I was already only centimeters from my destination.

"Tara!"

I heard his muffled yell through the door. No doubt he smelled a fish when there was one, and he knew now I was making good my escape. The door flew wide open.

With a grunt and a gasp, I swung my long legs up, smashed right through the glass, and slid myself through like laundry in a chute.

Just then, a strong, firm hand grabbed me by the collar of my jacket.

"I don't know what I have to do to get it through your head that I'm trying to help you," he whispered angrily in my ear.

"Liar!" I shouted, and squeezed my eyes shut. I would pretend he was Medusa, and under no circumstances would I look even once at him. I still had my dagger out; blindly I lashed out with one hand and with the other shoved away from him. I heard the satisfying slice my blade took out of his person. He gave a frightful yell and released me.

I crashed to the gravel and dust in a cramped ball. I rolled some distance and struggled upright, then bit down a scream against the dagger of pain. Something was broken in my foot, I could feel it.

Colin's insane yelling had ceased from behind me, and I heard him already clambering out right after me. _Bad guy, bad guy, bad guy_, I chanted to myself over and over again. Swearing and calling Zeus all the different names I knew in my relatively wide vocabulary, I hobbled forwards, stumbled, caught myself, and dashed as fast as I possibly could with a debilitating limp.

"Come back here, Tara! Stop hurting yourself!"

I growled back and pressed on, running for all I was worth. Now that my lungs were wheezing, I could feel a rib splintered somewhere in there, too. But I'd handled far worse before-heck, I'd escaped a strangling. I opened my eyes now and saw a forest looming before me-just a thin layer of trees, but getting thicker as it deepened. I mustered all the strength left in me and sprinted for it.

The last thing I remembered was bashing my head against an overhanging bough just like an idiot, grunting in pain, and collapsing to the ground before I completely blacked out.

**A/N: I actually wrote some more of this chapter, but then I changed my mind and cut it out to be moved into the next one. I think suspense is usually the key. *evil wink***

**This is actually one of my favorite chappies in the story, even though it's just as short as the last one, because of the part where T makes a rainbow and escapes through the window. I mean, she gets hurt in the process, but that's the stuff I'm talking about when I want adventure. Besides, I **_**did**_** tell you **_**Macgyver**_** was my favorite TV show. =)**

**So with that aside, please feel free to drop me a review or two! (Er...not that you **_**could**_** do two, but you get the idea...)**

**Stay happy, ~Katrina Mae**


	11. Chapter 11: Blood on These Hands

**A/N: I'm sooo sorry I didn't get this chapter earlier. Did any of you ever have any clue how absolutely irritating and despicable American History homework can be? No, I didn't either, until tonight.**

**So now I'm going back to the flashback style. =) Cheers for Darian and my other readers for their infinite store of the virtue dubbed Patience! 3**

Chapter 11: Blood on These Hands

Like I said, I'm a perfect idiot, so before now I'd never stopped to realise that blood tasted like rust and salt. And that's an apt description, considering that, like an idiot (see above), I've eaten off utensils _with_ rust and thus know what rust even tastes like.

What awakened me was the fact that my pillow was abnormally soft. I turned my head moronically about, as if searching for the knot of a tree root at my nape, but no-the soft white pillow was still there. I checked the rest of my body, too, and almost screamed like an actual girl when I saw I was...let's say, clean. I'd never come even close to "filthy" before; I had always been beyond description. But now all my black clothes were taken away, and instead I was dressed in a super-girlish white and blue wallpaper-flowery flannel nightgown. Cast over me with care was a heavenly white down cover.

Automatically I tried to spring up-and found that that was a bad idea. I felt like I'd been beat up by a boxer, mashed up a couple of times in a garbage compactor, and then thrown on the highway in the path of a container van. Maybe throw in a couple of extra rolls down a cliff for good measure.

I weighed my options: look out the window at the sarcastically sunny morning with the chipper chirps of insincere sparrows, leap out of bed and sprain an ankle as well as break a clavicle or two, or sit tight and wait for justice to find me. In the end, my sleepiness prevailed, and my body chose the latter for me.

I awoke rather unpleasantly to the rather pleasant creak of the door opening, followed by hurried whispers and a girl's suppressed cry of excitement. I wondered irritably what in hurtling Hades had compelled me to stay instead of fly the minute I'd first opened my eyes.

"She's awake now, hun," said a youngish woman's voice from directly behind the door which stood ajar.

The covers rustled noisily as I jerked myself into a sitting position, my lips pressed into a thin scowl against whatever new devilry I had to face.

Turned out that formidable new devilry was a pale, knobby-kneed girl with with huge electric blue eyes and wild tar-black hair, skin diaphanous beyond reality and frame skinny beyond belief. By her size, she could barely have been ten years old.

Promptly following behind her was the young woman who was presumably her mother-no offense to the girl, but her mother had more striking beauty-who was also petite, though less noticeably, with flawless tan skin and chin-length caramel hair streaked with honey highlights. I could see where the girl had gotten the saucer-sized eyes, except that her mother's were a light hazel flecked with gold and shone with-get this-_love and care_.

"Hello, good morning, and I'm so sorry if we woke you up, but my daughter here was very concerned to see how you were doing," the young mother greeted me breathlessly. She flashed a quick smile at me, which I dubiously attempted to return. The wild hope that had flailed in me was instantly beaten down: she was, without a doubt, American. For some recondite reason I had dared to hope that she was a fellow Britainer.

I moved uneasily. Instinctively I reached to my back, and my heart rate pistoled to a gallop when I found my dagger strap gone.

"Where did you find me?" I asked hoarsely, as the woman nodded her daughter forward by my bedside.

The beautiful woman laughed weakly in relief. "Imagine this-in the woods! It was such a blessing that little Chloe was wandering around chasing squirrels, or else you would have bled three-fourths to death lying there unconscious."

Three-fourths to death? I raised a brow involuntarily at the expression. I cocked my gaze critically in the direction of the aforesaid little crow-headed nugget who was swiftly becoming a pivotal force in my life.

The woman chuckled again then. "I'm sorry, I forgot. I'm Anelise Phoenix. And this, of course, is my daughter Chloe." She beckoned the girl forward and laid her hands on Chloe's veiny shoulders.

"And I just turned eleven years old," Chloe announced proudly in her piping, confident voice.

In spite of myself, I felt my mouth twitch upwards. I noted their expectant looks and cleared my throat uncomfortably. "Um...thanks. And me name's...Tara. Tara Fortia Wellington." The instant the words flew out of my mouth, I pounded myself silently for ever revealing to anyone so unguardedly my real name. "I like t' be called T, though," I amended.

Anelise smiled. "All right, then, T. Are you hungry?"

I shook my head. My stomach growled rebelliously.

Her smile morphed into a full-blown grin. "Here. We saved you some toast and milk...and some orange juice."

I prayed desperately that I wasn't drooling. How long had it been since the last time I'd had orange juice-five years? Eight? Somehow it hurt my head just to think of it.

Anelise solicitously interpreted my following grimace as a symptom of pain. Her fine eyebrows knit together, and her long-fingered hands fluttered searchingly around me. "Where does it hurt? You broke quite a few ribs, in addition to your right wrist and ankle."

I swore shamelessly under my breath, at which Chloe innocently plugged her ears behind her mother's back. "It hurts _everywhere_," I groaned at last.

"Hold still," she commanded me, and closed her eyes and touched her cool, dry left hand to my brow. Her visage was one of utter concentration. Pretty soon a watery sensation filled me, invigorating me and assuaging a small part of the overall pain. Now it was a dull throb and not a sharp bed of tacks.

Presently Anelise released me, smiled tentatively, and pushed the tray of breakfast food towards me. "How is it now?"

"Better," I admitted. I reached for the toast, then stopped. "How did ye do that?"

Anelise shrugged modestly. "Healing powers. But I'm only a mortal. Well, actually, my...late mother was a granddaughter of Apollo."

I sank my teeth into the rich, warm buttered bread-then stopped. Again. And gaped. "Ye _know_ about _that_?"

She laughed sheepishly. "Tara-um, T, was it? T, my daughter here is a half-blood."

I slid my gaze cautiously towards Chloe, who was, instead of listening, rather observing my stale breakfast with breathless avidity.

"Who's her dad?" I whispered, almost fearfully. I ran through all the horrendous possibilities in my head, the ones I'd heard Chiron and Percy discussing in grave murmurs. Zeus? Poseidon? One of the Big Three?

"My, ahem, husband was Zeke Ventus," began Anelise, colouring furiously, and pushing the food at me again in a vain attempt to hide her blush. Seeing she refused to continue unless I ate, I took another hurried bite and chewed methodically. "Zeke Ventus was his alias. Don't worry, he was a minor god...but no, not _minor_. Never minor to _me_. He was Zephyrus, wind god-god of the west wind."

The silent question burned feverishly in my eyes. (Or eye. Whatever.)

Anelise shook her head. She cast a keen eye at Chloe, who caught the look and quickly excused herself from the room with a cheery promise to importune me again. Anelise turned back to me. "No. He never told me. I figured it out on my own, sometime after he...left." She swallowed. I knew this was a painful corner of her biography. "See, my best friend is a guy called Rick, Rick Riordan. He and I researched about Greek mythology, and together we wrote a long story about demigod heroes. Then it clicked in my head-all the mysterious clues. I figured out Zeke was a god."

I whistled.

"Where am I?" I asked suddenly.

"In my summer house in upstate New York," she answered truthfully.

I cursed then with such ineffable energy that even she had to wince. Abruptly I toned it down. "Blast 'im, blast that bloody son of-"

"The son of Eros?" she filled in quickly, perhaps fearing I might have otherwise filled in my sentence with a more common affectionate name.

"Son of Error-_what_?" I demanded.

"Eros," she repeated crisply, with careful emphasis. She cocked her head to the side. "Did you know that you talk in your sleep?"

Mortification grilled my cheeks. "What'd I go mutterin' 'bout?"

"Um, something about a Jack and a Michael or some other and a...'brat named Aiden.' And about being" -she sought the ceiling for inspiration, seeking the most neutral word possible- "bewitched by a good-looking boy who enticed you away somewhere."

I snorted. "The darling-damned truth and not a hair less."

Anelise simply raised a brow at me.

"Who's Eros?" I said quickly.

"Let me see..." She leaned back for the slightest moment. "Oh, yes, he was the immortal son of Aphrodite, who was-_is_-goddess of beauty and love and all that. So Eros is, you know..."

"The god of _passions_." I made a sound of furious disgust in the back of my throat. "Figgers why an alley cat in th' likes o' me would be hoodwinked by a vagabond like _him_."

Anelise gave me a lopsided smile of sympathy. "I don't want to offend you in any way, T...but did you know that you're very pretty?"

My left eye flipped open. _Wide_ open. Mentally I reviewed my chances of jumping this joint of insanity. Through the open door I could see the narrow corridor, a door to the left...the basement? Or a linens closet? And then the huge bay window straight ahead-

"Well, it must be all true, then," Anelise interrupted me with a tender sigh. "I mean...what you talked about. Now I think I've tired you out all unnecessarily with all this talk. Finish your breakfast, and go back to sleep-you'll need it, half-blood." She winked saucily at me, quite unbecoming of a mother if you ask me, and swept to her feet and towards the door in one suave movement. She paused long enough to add: "If you really don't mind, Ta-T, I would really like to hear _your _story."

I opened my mouth extra wide to growl a protest, when I was cut off by the door hastily shutting itself in on me.

Grouchily I nestled under the covers, adjusted my perfectly ridiculous flannel nightgown, and dropped off into a fitful slumber once more.

T~T~T~T~T

_"Tara Fortia Wellington, moron offspring of the biggest idiot in the heavens, where have you _been_?"_

_ I glowered beneath the shaggy bangs of mine which had long overgrown their stage of presentability. There she was, dressed in all her splendid regalia, with blood-red lipstick staining her mouth and ominous black eyeshadow sinking her green eyes into malevolence. Carelessly she flicked the floaty white mink shawl over her shoulder and reached towards the counter for her half-filled goblet of champagne. I followed the craze of her eyes: this was not her first draught for the night._

_ "It's one o'clock," I answered roughly. "I stayed up waiting for you. You didn't come. I'm sick, I was sick, you knew it. But you didn't come back and get me my medicine. I had to go out and get it myself." I was taken then by a ferocious bout of coughing which gave plain testimony to my words._

_ "Pooh!" spat my mother, somehow managing the dainty disapproval with as much disgust as a swearing sailor. "Nonsense. You ain't sick, not a drop of the cough. You're only shamming. Haven't you got anything better to do than aggravate your poor, tired mother?"_

_ I snarled in fury and took three swift, dangerous steps closer to her. At thirteen, I was already a full inch taller than her. "A poor, tired mother!" I suppressed the violent sneeze that weakened my anger. "A poor, tired mother who struts about all day in fur and silk, singing sleazy songs at some country club and basking in the gooey eyes of full-pocketed admirers, and going out EVERY SINGLE DEVIL-DAMNED NIGHT with a different man?"_

_ The goblet went down. The green eyes lashed out; the wicked nail polish glinted in the fluorescent light of the kitchenette. Then, very tipsily, but so much more deliberately, she raised her right hand and brought a resounding _thwack_ across my cheek._

_ "You ingrate!" she screeched, bloodshot eyes tearing with the toll of the wine. "You good-for-nothing, lazy, stupid, ugly hag! You're useless! You'll never be anything but a monstrous douche bag! I wish I had aborted you when the doctor gave me a chance!"_

_ "And don't you think I wish that too?" I shouted right over her. "I study! I fail my math, yes, but by the name of my father's ghost, I study! I try! What use is that degree you took in business, when all the business that goes around here is shady showbiz! I'm sick of your drinking, I'm sick of your singing, I'm sick of your throwing yourself on every single organism in suit and pants!"_

_ She grabbed me then by the shoulders and shook me back and forth till my teeth rattled and I felt the blood starting where her nails dug into my skin. "How dare you insult me! How dare you!"_

_ "I dare because you are wrong!" In one stroke, I shoved aside her arms._

_ I was blinded so suddenly then by the burn of warm wine thrown in my eyes. I screamed and staggered back, falling to my knees, and felt the shards of discordant ringing glass pierce the skin of my palms. I reached up to swipe at my eye, when a sharp-toed boot in the ribs sent me reeling back._

_ "Then go and live in the street, for all I care!" she shrieked, pounding my back and neck with balled-up fists. "You are not my daughter! You are the daughter of-"_

_ "Don't you dare!" I bellowed breathlessly, having risen half to my feet by now and wiped the champagne from my face. "He was my father! He left me, and he left you. But he was-he was-My. Father!"_

_ "Just like him!" she cried, aiming another cuff at the back of my head. "The cheat! Go and find him in the streets, and the two of you lying jackals go down to Tartarus together!" With that, she seized the nearest thing at hand-the large knife I had been using to cut myself some medicinal ginger-and ran at me._

_ I gave a frightful yell and leaped aside. The knife buried itself half a centimeter from my arm against the crumbling sheetrock. Screaming incoherently, she yanked it out, ignored the powdered rock spilling on her fine shoes, and turned on me again._

_ Adrenaline roared to life in my veins, turning my anger into a blazing vision of crimson. I saw the knife, and heeded not: I grabbed it from her blade first and hurled it across the living room, where it embedded itself, quivering, in the ratty and torn loveseat._

_ It took her but a moment to react. She flew at me and tore and scratched my hair, calling me a host of choice names, and raining down blows that knocked the breath from me. I doubled over and fell to my knees on the shattered glass again, shielding myself from my outstretched claws. At the last moment, my eyes alighted on the bar stool. In an instant, I had grabbed it by one leg and brought it crashing down on her back._

_ The blows stopped._

_ I replaced the breath I couldn't remember exhaling. My lungs expanded and lunged hungrily for more air. I gasped, and felt her still hand: it was still warm. But it did not move. Quickly I yanked away the dark hair spilling over her face and pressed two fingers to the jugular vein in her neck._

_ No movement._

_ "Mum?"_

_ Her lips fluttered futilely for the briefest moment. Then a convulsion shuddered through her spine, and her body lay completely still._

_ "Mum! Mum!"_

_ Abruptly the redness in my vision cleared away like a mist. I saw her face, ashen and deathly beneath the bronze makeup, and the parted lips dry and white concealed by the blood-red lipstick._

_ I got up, twisting my knees about robotically from the bleeding pain I hardly felt. I wasn't thinking. My brain had shut down on me. I moved mechanically to my room; I saw a pile of clothes on my bed, and I grasped it in my trembling hands and threw it into a backpack._

_ Then, with no idea how I'd ended up there, I was back on the street._

**A/N: Yay! A crossover with **_**Whisper**_**! Did you recognize Anelise and Chloe up there? :D**

**Hey, can you believe I never intended to give you this flashback till, like, ten chapters later? But I couldn't help it...XD So stay tuned for the next chapter! And PLEASE REVIEW! ~Katrina Mae**


	12. Chapter 12: Night of Six Months

**A/N: Hiya! I have been revisited by my dearest Muses! Yeah, yeah, I know this isn't exactly a **_**quick**_** update, but at least I'm going doing it from now on somewhere around once a week or every other week. How does that sound, eh? I mean, I'm writing four other stories at the same time, peoples! As well as some one- and two-shots thrown in besides.**

**Also, I decided that the last eleven chapters have been pretty sappy-no kidding-so I'm gonna seriously start throwing in some action. What do you say? There will still be some flashbacks from time to time to reveal other facets of T's life, and some weird and prophetic dreams too. (Oops. I must zhip my mouthy.) But I think it's high time for the **_**real**_** story to get on.**

**Enjoy! =)**

Chapter 12: Night of Six Months

I woke up from my infernal nightmare, panting and sweating. It took an agonising effort to raise my eyes and discern the ticking wall clock in the dark. Midnight. My vision blotched over then with mad hues of green and red and black. My breathing got choked off, and I had to jam my sleeve-and my arm in it-in my mouth to muffle my scream.

I let my lungs dump themselves out a couple more times. Then my heart began to beat somewhat normally again, and crushing the last couple of shrieks, I fell back heavily on the bed. It was too soft, too clean. It stabbed me in the gut to think what was happening to Jack, what I'd done to my mother, while all this time I was lying in luxury.

The power of that guilt drove to me to no end. I rolled ungracefully off the bed, angrily tearing away the bedclothes twisted round my legs, and slumped onto the cold, hard wood floor. Then my fingers encountered something familiarly stiff and cool: my black leathy jacket, shiny in the moonlight in its cleanliness, laid carefully over a pile of my regular black clothes. Thanks the gods.

Have you ever realised how soothing-and distracting-a good, long shower can be? No? Neither did I, until that very moment, when I had a sudden urge to stumble into the nearest tub and wash away all the years of memories and grime from myself. I'd already been washed down by Anelise, but what with my everlasting nightmares and flannel nightgown, my body was again drenched in sweat and dust. My eye darted about keenly and sought a door; I found the entrance to the private john soon enough, and I slipped inside with my bundle of clothes tucked securely under one arm. And once I was safely in the steam of the shower, I could focus on the pounding of hot rain on my back and escape from all the horrendous thoughts shrieking and crowding in and out of my mind.

Fifteen minutes later-after dawdling in the tub-I stepped out before the mirror to dress. It was then that I had to take a step back at my appearance.

It looked as if I'd been pummeled by a welterweight champion. There was a shallow laceration just above my left eyebrow-above my only good eye-that made me wince when I squinted; thankfully my nose was not broken. But there were wild slashes up and down my arms and legs where my body had rolled mercilessly across the sharp gravel of the parking lot I'd fallen into; my right ankle was swollen well beyond recognition, and though it was bound and cast tightly, I could still feel the pain throbbing up my lower leg. I knew something was broken down there, although the pain was somewhat duller and number than before; perhaps, by some miracle, Anelise kept nectar and ambrosia and had fed them to me in my sleep. I guess it was not improbable, considering that she _knew_ the heritage of her own daughter.

My breath caught in the back of my throat. Anelise had obviously given me a bath before putting me to bed, and only an idiot would give me a bath without taking off my clothes first. That inevitably meant she had seen _it_-what no one had ever seen before besides me and one other person in the world. My left arm. And not just any left arm.

A fully tattooed left arm.

It all flashed through my mind then what each tattoo meant, and the entire story behind it...

T~T~T~T~T

_Rapid footsteps were approaching the door just barely ten feet away from me. I checked the huge, taunting granfather clock on the other side of the hotel room and cursed under my breath. I'd definitely cut it too close. I tried to keep my breathing even as I thought of Jack and Crispin down there right outside the window cracked ajar, knees locked and gazes fixed on the light from this sixth floor, and praying-yeah, actually praying-that I would just hurry the hell up._

_ I swore again as the combination lock bounced back and pinched my gloved index finger at the cuticle. I took barely a moment to console myself; pain was not important. Come to think of it, it nearly never was._

_ 36, 49, 13...57..._

_ Coming..._

_ With a triumphant click of finality, the safe sprang open and sighed like an old man. With those even, timed footsteps ringing in perfect rhythm with the galloping beat of my heart, I reached forward and grabbed all three silk bags at once, whirled, and raced to the window. At the last moment I remembered the metal door of the safe, swinging and creaking merrily back and forth ajar. I shot a backward kick; my foot connected, and the door slammed shut._

_ Had they heard me?_

_ The footsteps paused. Stopped._

_ Right outside the door._

_ There was a man's voice, high and piping like a choking weasel's. That would be the diamond auctioner, I recalled from my reconaissance earlier that night. There was another voice then-a woman's, low and husky and, at the moment, quite demanding._

_ I glided across the carpet, pushed the greased window open wider, and dropped all three dark blue bags into midair. Only the faint thud and suppressed grunts that followed in my keen ears assured me that Jack and Crispin had caught all, right on time._

_ I glanced back. The doorknob was rattling now; the voices were rising and clicking together faster. They'd definitely heard something. Plus, there was no way now I could climb down the gutter now without them rushing to the window and grabbing my ankle and hauling me away to the constable._

_ The adrenaline kicking in was yanking my brain into overdrive. Think, think, think..._

_ Aha!_

_ I plunged my hand into one of my numerous pockets, retrieved my mini torch, and flicked it swiftly on and off in a swift Morse-code S.O.S. I really should have done CATCH ME, but there was simply no time._

_ I leaned out the window, stepped into the darkness, and threw msyelf down into complete nothingness. I had remembered just in time to yank the window shut. Everything was going perfectly._

_ Except for now, of course. Hurtling downwards at fifty meters a second to certain death with a wrenching stomachache didn't exactly assure one that everything was going perfectly._

_ Then it was all over with a crash and tumble of jackets, bones, and sneakers. A familiar pair of warm, strong hands caught me somewhat roughly under the arms; my weight sent Jack stumbling back a step or two. With a nod of thanks that was nearly invisible in the cloak of night, I set myself aright on the pavement and hit the ground running. Crispin tossed me one of the heavier midnight blue silk bags, and with unerring instinct I caught it on the run._

_ "What a pinch," Jack breathed heavily when at last we had safely lost ourselves in the labyrinth of the other side of London. "Ye really had to cut it close, didn't you?"_

_ I scowled in the dark. Of course, his raptor vision caught the oh-so-subtle gesture._

_ To my most immense surprise, his hand found its way onto my arm. He squeezed me reaasuringly. "Not that ye didn't do great, T. It was all...magnificent."_

_ All I had to do was listen to his mere voice to believe the overwhelming relief and respect in his tone. I slanted my gaze back at him sharply, inquisitively._

_ "And this was yer first, too," he added._

_ Crispin's shock of unruly flaming hair flopped out from beneath his black beanie cap as he shifted in the shadows of an abandoned factory we were passing by. My eyes had adjusted swiftly to the gloom, and now I could just make out Jack's dark, fathomless eyes shining at me to my right._

_ I managed a wan smile. "So when do we jump the stones?" I furtively indicated the bags of diamonds which we each carried._

_ The grin that spread across his face then reached up to his eyes. "Tonight. Then...reward. And we celebrate."_

_ I grinned back._

_ Two hours or hard bargaining later-a grand trick, all my idea of course, in which we wandered back to the hotel looking sweaty and beaten up and lugging the bags of diamonds, located the stuttering diamond auctioner, and sold the precious stones back to him at the price of a reward-the three of us were heading back in the direction of home as we pocketed our crisp cash._

_ "Mikey would go berserk with this 'ere lot," I noted wryly._

_ "Sprite," Crispin laughed. "Tons an' tons of Sprite."_

_ Jack chuckled. "What are ye doin' with yours, T?"_

_ I looked down, rolling the notes absently between my fingers, and shrugged. "Surprise you all, maybe. We'll see." A brief smile flickered across my eyes._

_ Jack caught the glint in my gaze and suppressed a grin. "Mischief's afoot, eh?"_

_ Early the next morning, I stumbled into the house through the back door, conveniently waking everyone up with a grand crash of my stash of carefully polished pots balanced on the broken counter. I swore halfheartedly under my breath, righted myself, and moved around the kitchen with as much dignity as I could muster in the four seconds or so before Jack came gliding in._

_ "Were ye out all night?" he inquired mildly._

_ I blinked noncommittally and busied my slightly trembling hands with preparations of breakfast. No doubt the more industrious boys had already grabbed something and started off on their own little missions, but it was still my habit to make breakfast for Jack and me and sit at the table for a while, just the two of us._

_ "Don't cook," he urged me, as his eyes slid towards my hands oiling the pan. "I got you all doughnuts."_

_ I turned sharply. "I hope ye didn't spend all yer money _on_ it."_

_ Jack gave a short laugh, somewhere between a bark and a snort. "I still have me brains in me cranium."_

_ My shaky smile grew into a full-blown grin. "I borrowed your bike."_

_ He shook his head and simply picked sprinkles off his long fingers. He leaned against the counter to face me more clearly and smiled. "Act first, ask later. Always applyin' the principle. Good job."_

_ I rolled my eyes halfheartedly. "It was _out of town_, for serpent's sake."_

_ Jack chortled again at my odd expression. Then he sobered quickly. "Planning to show me that arm sometime?"_

_ He startled me so much that I actually blinked. Only Jack-and that creep Aiden-could do that to me. "What?"_

_ He shrugged and scratched the rumpled crown of his dark head. "Up to you. I saw the way ye held yer arm when ye crashed through the door a minute ago."_

_ "Oh..." I laughed breathlessly. Nervously. "Hell, yeah." My breathy laugh turned even more nervous. "I got a tattoo."_

_ Jack glanced back and forth between my gingerly held arm and my screwed-up face. Then he said flatly, "It's infected."_

_ I sighed and rolled my eyes. "The hell it ain't."_

_ "Then why the hangin' limb?"_

_ "Because I got into a bloody brawl with the tattoo dude, stupid."_

_ Jack winced visibly-whether at my tongue or at my tale, I could hardly tell. "Afore or after?"_

_ This time I resisted the urge to roll my eyes yet again and instead stared him down-as if that were possible. "Would I say I had a tattoo if I didn't get it? Obviously the dude wouldn't ha' given me one if I'd mussed his hair first."_

_ Jack cocked a dubious brow at my garble of logic. Then, wordlessly, he reached out, took my wrist firmly, and pushed up the sleeve of my black jacket. He let out a short, low gust of breath-his version of flatbacked astonishment._

_ I yanked my hand away quickly. Then I shrugged off my black jacket and flung it onto the back of the chair nearest at hand. "It's hot, anyway," I muttered, and turned away to the doughnuts, at the same time displaying in full view the sleeve of tattoos completely covering my left arm._

_ Jack gaped._

_ "Caught yer by surprise, did I?" I gave him a toothy grin. "I had the guy put down our names an' birds."_

_ It was the secret tradition of the Black Hearts, instituted-surprisingly-by Mikey. Each new member picked a bird to represent himself. (Or herself, in _my_ case.) My arm was now tattooed with "Jack Avalon" at the top near the shoulder, and a bald eagle reared its head beside it. Right below was my name, a bold curlicued T, with a smaller golden eagle soaring round. Below that I had grudgingly included Aiden-the hawk-and so on, down to the last rank, which ended right above my wrist. Mikey happened to be a jay, and Crispin a crimson-eyed osprey._

_ I looked up again at Jack and saw that he was frowning ferociously. "What?" I demanded._

_ "Ye know," he began slowly, "if...by any chance...ye were t' get caught, this would give us away."_

_ Oh. So that was what was bothering him. "Jack, I think of everything, don't I?"_

_ Reluctantly he tore his gaze away from my inked arm and focused on me. He nodded cautiously._

_ "Then ye should know by now that I'd sooner cut off this arm and stick it in a barrel o' acid afore any of the cops would know. I swear by me Black Light." Considering that I didn't swear often, an oath on anything-even my dagger-was powerful enough._

_ At that, his face finally cracked into a tentative grin. His dark eyes filled up at the back with some inscrutable pain at my descriptive declaration, but now at least I had made him happy._

_ "Did it hurt much?"_

_ His abrupt question brought me up short. "Er...no."_

_ "Liar." Then he laughed and shoved a doughnut in my face._

T~T~T~T~T

I sighed. I was done moaning over my wounds and memories. For all I knew, Jack could have been killed, or at the very least on the threshold of death.

Now...I had to plan.

I got dressed in a huffing hurry. I yanked on my frayed grey jeans, my harness for my black dagger, one of the dark splotchy t-shirts I layered which used to be an ambiguous shade of green or blue, and my battered but still flashy black leather jacket with its proud assortment of odd tassels and rivets and pockets. My worn Converse were still perched intact on the windowsill, looking as if they'd actually been scrubbed clean. I stuffed my feet in.

I made my way swiftly back towards the bed and grabbed the knit throw; this I crumpled up into a longish ball and stuffed under the bedclothes, then patted it down in certain places to somewhat resemble my tall figure. I turned-then pulled up short. What was I to do about money? True, I still had my golden drachmas tucked safely in my jacket, but that helped as much as 0.0001% in the mortal world.

Just at this moment, there was a brief tap on the door.

That tiny sound threw me into a veritable panic. Who could be knocking at this hour of the night-or morning, rather? My fingers slid up the back of my t-shirt and closed around the hilt of the dagger. Then, cautiously, I made my way in silence towards the side of the door and drew myself flat against the wall, waiting.

The knock came again, a little louder and more impatient; then the door itself swung open, and small figure strode in. Snarling, I leaped with my dagger drawn-

"Chloe?" I gasped.

The little crowheaded girl struggled and glared at me with enough ferocity to be me. Her saucer-sized electric blue eyes seemed to glow even more intensely than ever before in the gloom of the moonlit room. "Let go of me!" she hissed as she thrashed about. Somehow she managed to aim a well-placed kick at my right shin. I gave a gasp when my ankle protested, and promptly released her.

Chloe righted herself and straightened her floral nightgown with a huff of indignation. "I wouldn't have knocked if I was really trying to kill you in the middle of the night, you know," she pointed out quite accurately, to my immense mortification. "I came to give you stuff."

"Stuff?" I echoed with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

The girl rolled her eyes very visibly at me. "Stuff, supplies, provisions, whatever you call them. You're leaving, aren't you? But you haven't got even a cent on you."

Come to think of it, even if I _had_ had any money left, it would not have been American currency.

"I ain't be needing money," I said a little rudely.

"Yes, you do," she contradicted me. "Nothing's free in this country, even though the whole world says it's a free nation. Well, in my opinion, the whole world is a bunch of idiots."

"Including you, eh?" I shot back.

"Assuming that I'm actually part of this world," she replied complacently. She dug into a tiny pouch hanging at her wrist which I hadn't even observed there before. Quickly she walked over to the dresser and emptied the contents of the wristlet onto the doily, where she counted out an enormous number of bills and a handful of clinking coins. "They're all quarters," she answered the questioning look she must have psychically known had come over my face, since her back had been turned on me the whole time. "People are crazy over quarters around here. They won't let you feed the parking meter if you have any other kind of coin."

I snorted in spite of myself. Chloe had grit, I had to admit. I mean, just the fact that she stood loosely with her back to me, that meant that either she trusted me not to knife her and take her savings, or else she was prepared to fight. (Little fool, but quite a thrasher of one.)

Chloe straightened and pushed the wad of assorted bills and coins into my hands, which I looked down at in surprise and then stuffed hurriedly into my pockets. She also handed me a small bundle that was soft and warm; it appeared to be bread wrapped up in a hanky. I muttered something remotely related to Oliver Twist and nodded my thanks.

"Does Ane-does your mum know?" I whispered.

"No." Chloe's voice was low as well. "I'll tell her in the morning."

"'Kay." I patted her shoulder kindly enough. "Er...thanks."

"Yeah, sure." She rolled her eyes up at me again. "If you walk like a mile or more south, you'll find the road again. If that's where you want to go. There's a hotel just a little way down from there. You can probably get directions there to wherever you're going."

A lump suddenly rose in my throat. I had to clear it several times before I could speak, and when I could, my voice was peculiarly dry. "Ye know, I really ain't supposed to tell anyone, but if ye want t' know, I'm goin' after a friend. A really close friend. He was kidnapped by...um...an enemy."

Chloe eyed me with a sage look. "Oh, I know all about it."

I gaped. "Ye do?"

"Yeah, sure," she said, before disbelieving fury could take control of my visage. "You talk lots in your sleep, you know."

I swore shamelessly. She laughed.

T~T~T~T~T

True to her word, the impregnable forest seemed to thin out visibly as I continued the sweaty midnight trek south. I knew my cardinal directions from signs Jack had taught me before-and remembering this brought another large lump up my throat. My heart beat faster, and my pace quickened in time with it.

A hand shot out then and clapped itself over my mouth; another yanked me back by my bad shoulder, making me grunt silently. I struggled with all me free limbs as hard as I could, and I don't believe I was mistaken to hear my heel connect with a bony shin.

"Oww, damn it, hold still! T, it's me!"

My eye widened for a moment. Then I whirled, so fast that my captor released me inadvertently. "Dusty!" I hissed. "Who-how-ye knew-"

"Your IM, remember?" Dusty straightened from the forest floor and dusted himself off with a reproachful look.

"Oh...yeah, right..." I looked away as the past few days came crashing over me with the force of a tidal wave. Tears stung my eyes. "I was bein' a bloody dumb bastard." I took a deep breath before I could resume. "I got off course...with a stupid pretty boy...and now I ain't got the faintest clue where t' go next."

"You never did tell me exactly what's going on," remarked Dusty calmly. "All _I_ know is that we're chasing some guy called Aiden, who's got that mortal friend of yours, and that you two seem to have a vendetta that goes some time back."

"Hell, we go _way_ back," I snorted, finally turning back to Dusty. I studied his mismatched eyes, which were staring back at me with an enormous intensity. I drew another deep breath. "I'm part of a gang."

No visible change took over Dusty's face, except for a muscle twitching in his jaw, and I had to credit him for his admirable...er...poise. "Aiden was third in command in our gang," I went on resolutely. "I was second. Jack was the leader. I ain't naming names, now, mind you." I cocked a brow expectantly.

Dusty shook his head. "Well, go on."

"Aiden an' I got somethin' between us, or so _he_ thought. As far as I was concerned, that somethin' was nasty. He got angry as a bull, nat'rally, and tried to get at me whenever he could. We dueled several times...and one time...he-" I choked. "He got Mikey."

Now Dusty's eye twitched. "That soda guy."

My smile twisted into a grimace. "Then Aiden went off and formed his own gang. He almost killed me, the night afore Thalia came by and saw Jack and me and brought us over to camp. We heard nothin' else of 'im until...the blood."

Dusty nodded mutely.

"But Thalia and I figgered something else," I whispered. "Don't ask how we know. Aiden is a half-blood."

His eyes widened. "But that would mean all sorts of things! He could be the son of anybody...and he could have nameless powers."

I nodded back grimly.

Dusty frowned now. "But wait, why would he steal Jack?"

"To lure me," I stated simply. "Obviously he knows now _I'm_ a half-blood, or half-Titan, whatever. There's a purpose for things as they are. He don't do things for no reason."

"So we're going against something quite massive here," Dusty summarised succinctly.

I gave him a glum look of acquiescence and resignation.

"But, hey, cheer up," said Dusty suddenly. "I mean, if he's a half-blood and all, and if he _is_ trying to lure you, then no doubt he'll find a way to give us a clue where to find Jack."

I laughed mirthlessly. "Ye're right. Straight into the lion's maw."

Dusty shrugged. "That's the hard part, isn't it?"

"Ain't it," I repeated. "But we'll cross it when tha' bridge appears." I turned to him with interest. "Hey, how'd ye get 'ere so fast, anyway?"

"Your note told me where you were."

"Note? What note?" I demanded.

He fished around in his pocket and produced a rumpled, sodden wad of notebook paper that hardly looked ready for another reading. I snatched it roughly from his hand anyway and scanned the smudged ink of the curlicued letters written there.

_It's okay, I'm with friends. I'm upstate near Buffalo in a cabin with the wife of a god and their half-blood daughter. Come quickly-it'll be night soon for six months._

"Yeah, that last part sounded like jibberish to me," Dusty admitted. "But I guessed you were kind of delirious and all, especially after you told me over the IM that you'd been hypnotised or something of the sort, so I came as quickly as I-"

"I did not write this," I interrupted him.

Dusty stopped and stared at me. "What?"

"This ain't my handwriting," I clarified quietly. "It's Aiden's." In a gust of wind I let out the breath I'd been holding unconsciously. "He knows ye've never seen me write afore. This is Aiden. And he just gave us our first clue."

**A/N: Muwahahaha! *grins an evil grin* So the update is worth the wait, I hope? Stay tuned for the next installment, and don't be afraid to tell me in your review what you think the clue means!**

**Cheers,**

**~The Ocean Is My Inkwell**


	13. Chapter 13: I Am a Ninny Since I Scream

**A/N: Okay, peoples, so I know it's been AGES since my last update on this one. SORRY. Especially for Darian, one of my most patient fans. I've been studying for bloody SATs, and I can most assure you it's the most wonderful task in the world. *rolls eyes sarcastically* No, really. Who actually **_**loves**_** taking tests, besides Hermione Granger? (She literally said "Oh, no!" when exams were canceled!)**

**Well, enough with the Harry Potter wisecracks. Thank you so much for the reviews for the last chapter, and please enjoy! =)**

Chapter 13: I Am a Ninny Because I Scream

We literally had no means of transportation but our own bloody legs.

Look, as a general rule, I don't begin any narrative with an invective in the first sentence. But as you probably can tell, I'm frustrated and trying to make a point here.

Dusty raised his eyebrows at me. "So what's the clue?"

I pocketed the crumpled note I'd grabbed from Dusty and heaved a deep sigh. "Alaska."

He stared at me.

"Night for six months!" I burst out, quoting the message back at him. "Ain't that Alaska? Where the sun is so damn irregular that ye live in darkness for half the damn year?"

Dusty winced. He nodded. "I should have thought of that." He eyed me curiously. "How'd you know that?"

I shrugged. "I ain't illiterate."

"Oh." He cleared his throat. "I just wondered...because of the way you talk..."

I gave a mirthless laugh and slipped into a proper schoolgirl's English accent to demonstrate. "Oh, I didn't talk like this all the time. I was educated once and attended a fine school. But after eighth grade..." The tears were sticking me with pins in the backs of my eyes again; I forcibly swallowed it down. "Well, don't let's get into that right now."

Dusty studied me silently. At long last, he nodded.

I roused myself with an effort. "Well, how d'ye suggest we get there-to Alaska, I mean?"

Dusty glanced about, casting for the basic cardinal directions. "If we could juts get out of this forest, there should be a highway."

"And then what? Hitchhike? I don't think so. Anybody could be drivin' that car."

"Sheesh, T, I've hitchhiked a gazillion times."

"And I haven't, for obvious reasons."

"Is this paranoia a direct result of being in a gang?"

I rolled my eyes ostentaciously at him. "_No_, Dusty, this paranoia is a direct result o' bein' hunted down like an animal."

"Wait," said Dusty. "Who ever said anything about being hunted down? I thought _we_ were hunting for your friend Jack."

I raised a brow. "Remember hypnosis-boy?"

"Ah."

"Yeah. No doubt he's still lookin' for us."

"So do _you_ have any suggestions?"

I grimaced.

Dusty shrugged. "I thought so." He chewed his lip. "Well, hey, you were able to make an IM to me out of nothing. Why not contact Sky?"

To tell the truth, I was sorely tempted. But I shook my head so vehemently that I swear I heard my brain jiggle. "Trust me on this one, mate. Ye don't want anyone else to get involved with Aiden."

"So we hitchhike."

He got me there. "Fine."

T~T~T~T~T

The problem with the two of us was that Dusty was a son of Apollo and I was...well, you know what I was. A daughter of Atlas. A musically talented archer and a tall girl with nothing but brute strength didn't add up to much, right? So it finally sank into me that we were going to have to do this the hard way. Aiden was wickedly smart-one of the countless things I could kick his ass for-and he knew that I was pretty much on my own on this mini-quest of mine. I might have help, but he knew it wouldn't be much. So he gave us an outright clue as to his-and Jack's-whereabouts, but would reel me in slowly. And I could do nothing, nothing at all, but take the bait.

How's that for a sighing resignation to a philosophical conclusion?

As it happened, after sticking out our hands for what seemed like hours, a merry container van of pickles picked us up along the way. (Yes, thanks to both of us, we had managed to scramble out of the forest and find the highway.)

Presently I was wedged uncomfortably between Dusty and a smelly old truck driver whose chin needed shaving and whose driving needed some polishing. I mean, not that _I_ even know how to drive-which is technically a shame at this old age of seventeen-but I sure knew that jiggling around your passengers isn't the best way to get to your destination.

"So, where to, kiddos?" he caroled.

"We're goin' to-" I stopped abruptly as Dusty elbowed me in a rather sensitive spot between my ribs. "What?"

Dusty was obviously trying to communicate to me through his rather unsettling mismatched eyes. I heaved a deep sigh. Whatever. This was a mortal, for gods' sake. Whatever we said didn't matter. At any rate, I was done with arguing. "Alaska," I finished.

The driver cocked a brow and let out a low, grating chuckle. "Aiming to strike it rich in the Yukon? I'd say you and your brother are pretty darn young."

"He ain't my brother," I said, irritated, "and we're not lookin' for gold."

The driver rolled his eyes. "Really?"

"Look, we'll pay you for your help. Could we please get started?"

"Fine," he huffed, and revved the wheezing engine.

I shifted my gaze to the side to catch Dusty rolling his own eyes at me in turn. "What's with the snappy get-out-of-my-way attitude?" he demanded.

I stared at him. "This is how I am. Deal."

"You mean to say this is how you talk even to your...um..._friends_?" Dusty said incredulously.

I shot him a look.

"Okay, okay. I'm dealing."

Just then the truck driver guy started whistling some odd tune at the top of his lungs, horribly off-key and horrendously jolly for the occasion. My palms were literally itching to smack him on the side of the head. But then again, I didn't suppose it was exactly the right way to say thank you to somebody who'd just trusted two bloodied, muddy, ratty-looking kids picked up from the wayside.

"How far d'ye think ye can take us?" I ventured gruffly.

The truck driver guy turned to face me fully and grinned like a maniac. I would have demanded in a second what he was so dead-on set on grinning about, but in the next half-second I already had my answer. Right before our eyes, he began to transform. His smelly stubble seemed to grow backwards into his face; he lost the uncool wrinkles and crow's feet around his eyes; and his hairline returned a few inches down his forehead. In the end, we had a pretty young-looking spiffy dishwater-blond guy with tanned skin, a Yankees cap with tiny wings on the sides, and a pair of outrageously mischievous golden eyes.

"God of travelers, thieves, and general mischief-making, at your service," he grinned. "And yes, I can take you all the way to Alaska."

Get this: my jaw actually dropped. It didn't happen often, and this big Greek dude had just seen me do it for the first time in quite a few years.

"Lord H-Hermes?" Dusty stammered.

Hermes nodded. "Your uncle, I presume. You've got Apollo's look printed all across your face."

Somehow something in these words made Dusty sit up a tad straighter. I was a little lost. "How'd ye find us? Why are ye givin' us help?"

Hermes turned his gaze on me. "That's what I do," he explained, speaking as slowly as one would to a child. "I'm the god of travelers. I help young half-bloods like you reach their destinations so they can complete their quests."

"This ain't, er, a quest," I mumbled.

"No?" For the first time since we'd fallen in together, Hermes' grin abruptly vanished from his face. "Nothing illegal, I hope."

Dusty gave him a dry smile. "In this kind of world, who's to say what's illegal?"

"Technically," I spoke up again, "I'm s'posed to be dead, so I guess this _is_ illegal."

Dusty shot me a look. "What?"

"I almost died runnin' from that damn hypnosis-boy," I reminded him.

Dusty didn't bother to question me how I almost died running from Damn Hypnosis-Boy. Seemed like DHB had already creeped him out for eternity, and he wasn't in to ask for more.

"Anyway," I went on, addressing Hermes, "in all other senses, I guess this ain't exactly illegal."

Hermes slowed down the container van and worked his jaw muscles with one hand, bemused. "Not a quest, eh? So what is this all about?"

This time I took the time to glance askance at Dusty. We shared a loaded look, and Dusty finally gave a tiny nod. I took a deep breath. "One of my friends is kidnapped. And I think-I _know_-it's by a certain half-blood who seems to be workin' for the bad guys."

Hermes studied me. I watched his golden eyes shift to a subtle deep brown; then his face tightened. He glanced around my head. "You're not a half-blood, are you?"

I stiffened. "'Course I am. What'd ye think, I'm a mortal hooligan?"

Dusty kindly took the opportunity to remind me that I was not far behind the truth in this description of myself. I shot him a dirty look.

"You're of Titan blood," said Hermes flatly.

I could only stare at him for a second and then nod dumbly. Something in his tone gave me reason to believe the Olympians and the Titans weren't exactly best buddies.

Cue Duh.

"Then why should I believe you?" he went on.

I glanced at Dusty. "I'm with an Olympian demigod right 'ere."

Hermes looked impatient enough to pluck me up by the neck and fling me across the continent-which, technically, he could do, being a god and all, but I definitely wouldn't go down without a fight. "Countless half-bloods of Olympian descent have been tricked by the Titans or have betrayed the side of their own parents. This is nothing new."

I studied his expression judiciously and made the prudent decision not to mention then just who my Titan father happened to be.

I also quickly decided that the tables were turning. And they weren't exactly in my favour. I made a desperate last attempt. "Listen, forget what I just said about paying you for your help. But ye've got to believe us. This guy we're goin' after, he's a half-Titan too. I don't know nothin' about this whole thing goin' on between you and the Titans" -I gulped a little at this bold step- "but if we don't get there in time, it will be too late to stop whatever he's tryin' to do."

"And what, exactly, is he trying to do?"

I forced myself not blink as I gazed back at this intense golden eyes boring down inside me. "I ain't got a clear idea," I began slowly. "But 'e definitely wants me."

"You?" repeated Hermes. He gave me another once-over, and it didn't seem like his thoughts of me at present were the most flattering. "Whatever for?"

I shrugged. "Zilch."

"No idea," Dusty added faithfully.

Hermes' eyes darted about as he swallowed this down quickly. He narrowed his gaze at both of us, and for a moment I felt a tinge of relief that I wasn't the only miscreant here in his perspective. "How can I trust that you're telling me the truth?"

I couldn't answer. Because the truth was, there was absolutely no reason for him to trust us.

It turned out that my silence was a good thing. My eye locked on his, and we shared a long, intense moment as if we were father and daughter trying to search into each other's souls. Well...not that that would ever happen. But you get the picture.

"You say a friend was kidnapped?" he repeated.

I nodded my head vigorously. At the mere thought of Jack's face, I'm ashamed to say my eyes began to prick with tears. Hermes must have seen that, and my wet eyes must have sealed his decision.

"Fine," he sighed. "C'mon, let's get this baby going."

I have to say that after that, it was a disappointingly uneventful ride. Hermes grunted and whistled that gods-awful tune every few minutes to cheer things up a bit and break the ice, but I didn't see any ice around being broken. Dusty was brooding; about what, I could hardly guess. Was he wondering about his choice to help me, a wanted gangster and formidable half-Titan on the run? It was funny, actually. I was both hunting and being hunted. I could have laughed out loud right then and there if I hadn't suddenly felt a wave of drowsiness coming over me. Come to think of it, I should have fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion hours ago. My adrenaline levels were finally falling, and it was time to recharge.

With a silent bang, I was floating in dreamland.

T~T~T~T~T

_BANG!_

_ The gunshot cracked like a whip through the air. Bang! Bang!_

_ I was trapped behind a vast mound of wine barrels, trembling with the effort to breathe again-running more than two miles across the city from a crowd of feisty hooligans was no picnic. Beside me Jack, Aiden, and Sam crouched on their haunches, likewise breathing heavily and gripping their knives in white-knuckled fists. After a few more deep breaths, I'd recovered my wind sufficiently enough to turn towards my mates and draw my own dagger. Black Light's deep smoky metal glinted wickedly in the ominous gloom of twilight._

_ The gunshots had stopped._

_ But how, and why?_

_ I chanced another glance over my shoulder-exposing my own dark head over the barrels in the process-and drew a breath in shock. I caught merely a flash of Aiden's flappy leather jacket as he vaulted from our makeshift sanctuary and galloped straight into the battlefield of hell._

_ Actually, I couldn't really be sure it wasn't hell already._

_ "Aiden!" I hissed._

_ "Aiden, get back here!" Jack whispered loudly._

_ Aiden was being either subordinate, deaf, or a total idiot. I guessed it was a combination of all three and much more thrown in besides. At any rate, he completely ignored our desperate hisses and hand signals and barreled straight through the putrid odour of gun smoke without even a cough. I wished heatedly he would choke and die._

_ There was a rustle on my other side as Sam roused himself to take a quick peek. "Where's 'e got himself now?"_

_ I laid a finger to my lips and simply shook my head. Whatever Aiden was up to, there was no saving him now. He was in clear enemy territory, just as I had been not two minutes before._

_ Yeah, that's right. Stealing something back from our next-door neighbours, the Ring of Death. The deadliest crack shot gang with guns._

_ Because you see, stealing and dodging happen to be two insufferable talents of mine._

_ Killing isn't._

_ I was more than willing to use trusty Black Light on any fool who tried to jump me. But flinging it at just somebody with the full intention to take that life...no. Even if it was an enemy gang member. I just couldn't do it. If I were to kill somebody, it would have to be either desperate self-defense, or a plain accident. Like my mother._

_ I winced and took a deep breath along with a wide detour in my mind at the scalding heat of that thought. What I needed now was a clear head, not a messed-up and angst-ridden teen girl with one eye who didn't have a clue what she was doing._

_ Jack tensed beside me. He knew me far too well, I was unhappy to say, to simply ignore the signs of a scheme: deep breaths, closed eyes, death grip around the dagger hilt. His strong, tan hand gripped my arm till it hurt. "T, I forbid you."_

_ I shot him a defiant look. "Aiden's a cocky good un with a knife, but he don't stand a chance against a bullet."_

_ Our eyes met. Jack's dark brown irises raged with a fire of such intensity that they had turned black. "Ye know what he's done to you."_

_ His voice was soft, flat, with no emotion but sympathy. I knew he was burning up inside for my sake. But despite all this, somehow I was foolhardy enough to go barreling in after the guy who'd spared me from nothing-attempted assault, countless insults and mockery, frustrated murder. I'd already saved his life from the house he'd personally burned down to trap me, and here I was, yet again covering his pathetic butt._

_ Well, drop the pathetic part, but at the moment that was foremost in my mind._

_ I met Jack's gaze levelly. "I know."_

_ "Then I'm goin' with you."_

_ "No!" My answer was so forceful that Jack actually pulled himself down like a self-monitored marionet and rocked back on his heels, stunned._

_ "Jack, please listen t' me," I pleaded. "This ain't just about gettin' Aiden. They stole somethin' from me. I-I ain't gonna let them take it."_

_ Jack gave me a long, hard look. "Ye ain't telling what it is."_

_ It wasn't a question. It was a statement._

_ I bit my lip and turned away. Somebody squeezed my hand tightly; I looked down in surprise to see that it was Jack._

_ "Get back quick," was all he said._

_ I nodded once, turned my gaze forwards, and ducked into the smoke of gunpowder. The powerful stench assaulted my nose, but I kept my head down and scurried like a hunched chipmunk across the open battlefield, praying that the flimsy mist would do its best to cover me._

_ As it happened, I didn't even have to get halfway before I crashed into a warm body-no, two bodies. And they were both breathing heavily. I tripped over my own feet, indulged in the luxury of a string of choice curses, and felt a strong masculine hand grip me to set me upright. It was Aiden. And his other hand was quite occupied, too. My gaze traveled from his face in the smoke, down his arm right to his hand which steadily held the honed edge of his knife against a girl's throat._

_ This was Jewel, the leader of the Ring of Death._

_ And in her hands she clutched the very thing I'd been looking for._

_ "Aiden!" Jack's voice barked. "What the hell do ye think you're doin'?"_

_ Aiden didn't answer. He didn't need to. In reply, he dragged the struggling and cursing flame-haired Jewel back towards our side of the battlefield. Jack and I exchanged a loaded look. Was this a smart move, or a total gaffe?_

_ Ten minutes later, the boys had assembled themselves grimly in a rough semicircle around Jewel, who was blinking owlishly and secured to a rickety chair that had served its purpose past retirement. Jack stood with arms crossed in the centre of the stage; a second after I joined him at his right hand, my arms hung loosely by my sides._

_ Aiden strode cockily into the room._

_ He rank of beer._

_ I surprised everyone when I was the first to speak. "Jewel, you have something of mine. I'd like it back."_

_ The red-haired girl's gaze wandered over this brood of dark-browed boys and finally focused on me. She could hardly have been nineteen, and she was wiry, but I could tell from her long legs that she could nearly be as tall as I was. Her large eyes were a deep forest green...with flecks of cinnamon. For some reason it stuck in my head._

_ Something passed between us then as our eyes locked. Emotions were broiling under the surface of her irises. I knew for a fact that she was the only woman in the Ring of Death, just like me; I wondered what she saw in my hideous face, mauled by the scar and capped with unflatteringly short hair. Perhaps she was wondering what I thought of her, as well. I tried to peer closely. What kind of life had given her that broken, skewed nose? What lies or pain lurked behind those cinnamon-green eyes? I took a deep breath to control my involuntary shudder._

_ Jewel didn't say a word. She didn't have to. Her wrists were bound before her, but I could still see the thing that I wanted glinting beneath her web of muddy fingers. She gave a small, imperceptible nod and then held up her fist with the treasure inside._

_ I took a step forward; Jack made to thrust out his arm protectively, but I glanced at him, and as our eyes met, he slowly nodded and lowered his arm again._

_ I faced Jewel and held out my hand. She dropped the treasure into my palm._

_ Then Aiden spoke, his voice a low growl. "You know the rules as well as I do, Jack. She's seen our place." His hand swooped silently towards the dagger in his sleeve; the movement was quick as thought, but I didn't miss it._

_ Jack held out his hand again, and his fingertips flicked; with a scowl, Aiden took the order and paused._

_ Jack's tone was reasonable but firm. "We don't kill for a hobby, Aiden. The rules call for it only in extremities."_

_ "I'd say this falls under that category," Aiden shot back._

_ I cleared my throat and shifted. Had Jack forgotten I was his second-in-command? Technically, I was a step higher than Aiden._

_ "No," I said._

_ The two boys turned to me. "What?"_

_ "I vote no."_

_ Aiden narrowed his eyes at me with a sneer. "You're a girl. Of course you would say no. Squeamish, eh? Never killed a person before?"_

_ I tensed. "You assume way too much." The green of my eyes snapped at him. "I've had blood on my hands before."_

_ Aiden fell silent. I felt Jack's dark eyes focus on me for a long moment. I looked away; finally he broke eye contact to turn back to the issue at hand. But I could still feel his unspoken question suspended in the thick air._

_ "Jewel," he said simply. "Will ye join us?"_

_ The red-haired girl raised her haunting green eyes from her hands to Jack's face. She was silent for a thousand forevers. Then her white lips formed one word._

_ "No."_

_ I willed myself to focus on whatever happened next, but I just couldn't. Quietly I closed my eyes and turned away. I had to force myself not cover my ears as well; but it hardly mattered: Jewel didn't make a sound. I heard only her initial gasp of pain, and then her breath left her with a hard whoosh. Then I heard the steady drip of liquid on the cement floor._

_ I opened my fist and looked down at the treasure inside for comfort: it was my mother's pearl necklace, the same one she'd worn the night she had died. The night I had killed her. I breathed._

_ Quickly I turned when I heard Aiden's low chuckle. Jack was staring at him with some foreign expression in his dark eyes. Behind us, the other boys were squirming uneasily._

_ "I didn't give you the order," Jack said._

_ Aiden shrugged discomfitedly. "Well, she said no, didn't she, mate?"_

_ Jack's voice rose. "I didn't give you the order!"_

_ All this seemed dim and tinny in my ears. My gaze was riveted on Jewel's lifeless green eyes, already glazing over as they stared emptily at the ceiling. I took a few steps forward and forced out a hand to close them, but I couldn't. All that filled my vision was blood, crimson and hot and wet on my fingertips. The blood was spilling, spilling, spilling. On my fingers, on my nails, coating the shiny white pearls in my hand. I was trembling. Then my fingers were tearing apart the necklace, snapping the string and letting the bloodied white pearls cascade to the floor and scatter. Someone was screaming, loud and high in my ears. It hurt. Who was that screaming? Somebody tell them to shut the hell up..._

_ It was me._

**A/N: Whoa, okay, so that sounded kind of emo, I guess. *shrugs* I'm posting another chapter with this update, so nuffin' left to say except please read on... =)**


	14. Chapter 14: Eenie, Meanie, Miny, Mo

**A/N: ...And so we go. (Haha, stole that from **_**Pendragon**_**.) Anyway, here's the second chapter in one update, to compensate for my prolonged silence the past couple of...oh my pretzels, months! So please read on. =)**

Chapter 14: Eenie, Meanie, Miny, Mo...My Plans Are Ruined

_ "T? T! Shh, it's all right. Calm down, Tara."_

_ I hadn't realised I was the one screaming until I became vaguely aware of Jack's face in my vision, his large hands patting my cheeks and shaking me gently for me to stop. Eventually I ran out of breath; gasping, my body trembled and let a few whimpers escape. Then I fell silent._

_ Jack tilted my head up with a finger. "Are ye all right?" he whispered._

_ I stared at him uncomprehendingly at first. Something boiled inside me, and without warning I bent over and retched on the floor, hard._

_ Jack whirled abruptly. "Aiden, get out."_

_ Aiden flipped the dirty blond locks from his eyes and gazed at Jack impassively. "I don't know what you mean."_

_ "Ye know exactly what I mean. I mean for you to get out. And don't ye come back here ever. That's an order."_

_ "Whatever for?"_

_ "Ye went ahead before I even spoke the word!" Jack barked. "I'm in command here. Ye're always forgettin' that. Tonight, enough is enough. Ye get out in the street and don't come back here ever again."_

_ Aiden scowled deeply. He indicated me rudely. "What about her? Hell, she hurled at the sight of blood! Ain't she gonna be banished too?"_

_ "Ye've already killed one member of this gang," growled Jack. "Mikey Devone. That's enough."_

_ "That was an accident."_

_ Jack glared at him fiercely. "Get. Out."_

_ The two had some kind of silent staredown contest; conflicting emotions flitted across Aiden's visage. His pride won, and he sheathed his still bloody dagger, picked up his backpack from the corner of the living room, and tramped silently down the stairs. The only sound was the click of the door below. Then his footsteps were lost in the snow._

_ Slowly Jack turned back to me. He flicked his eyes at the other boys, who had one by one dispersed to different rooms, still casting wary glances at the two of us in the centre of the room._

_ Jack reached to smooth my short, sweaty hair. His hand came to rest lightly on my cheek. "Ye all right?" he asked me again._

_ This time I nodded. He caught my slight hesitation._

_ "Those pearls," he said softly. "Who did they belong to?"_

_ My voice was thick. "My mum." A tear slid down my cheek unwarranted. It left a burning track along my skin._

_ Jack wiped away the moisture with his thumb. "Your mum's dead, ain't she?"_

_ I nodded._

_ "Ye saw her die."_

_ I hung my head; it was all Jack needed to confirm his statement._

_ "I didn't just see her die," I said hoarsely at last._

_ Jack bent to look into my eyes. "What?"_

_ "I killed her."_

_ I heard his sharp intake of breath. He must have read the tone of my words, for instead of pushing me away, he abruptly pulled me towards him and wrapped his arms around me securely. I let him hold me and then broke down into sobs. He didn't flinch as my salty tears soaked his jacket. He just held me, the two of us standing in the centre of that room, and ran his hand soothingly up and down my back. I shuddered once and then leaned my head against his strong shoulder. I closed my eyes._

T~T~T~T~T

"Hey! T, hey! Wake up!"

"What in tarnation-Dusty!" I choked on my own saliva and turned to glare at my companion, who had been attempting to shake me awake for-presumably-the last few minutes.

"I'm pleased to announce that we are, as they say, 'here'," came a cheery voice above my head. I whipped around to see Hermes smiling proudly.

"Wipe that grin off your face," I growled in ill temper. I glanced out the window.

"Yep," said Dusty. "Alaska. Night of six months, remember?"

I offered him a profound scowl of acquiescence.

"Sorry, but this is where I leave you two kids by yourselves," Hermes chirped. "Unfortunately for you, of course. I have some business to attend to. I trust you have weapons and brains to work with, so-darn it! My cadeuceus!"

I couldn't help myself. My eye widened as he pulled some kind of weird device from somewhere in the depths of his clothes. It was a kind of cell phone, I guess, but it was wrapped by two miniature snakes that were actually...alive. They writhed and hissed and bickered with each other.

"Yes, Martha, I'll be right there," Hermes addressed one of the snakes. He turned back to us. "Too-da-loo!"

"Hey!" I shouted. "Could ye tell those Greek cousin dudes of yours that an army's coming?"

But it was too late. Hermes had already disappeared with a flash of brilliant golden light.

"You should have turned away," Dusty informed me. "You could have been fried."

"Whatever," I said.

"But are you serious? An army?"

I glanced at him and shrugged. "It only makes sense, don't it? Aiden wants something from me, and he's usin' Jack to get my butt over there. He's a half-blood, and obviously he knows I'm one too, as Thalia and I figured. This is bigger than I thought. Really big. And I got a bad feeling in my gut."

Dusty eyed me thoughtfully. "Maybe so. I guess we ought to be prepared for the very worst, right?"

I simply nodded. All of a sudden the nastiness had drained out of me, and I felt just dog tired.

"Let's get out of this freakin' rig and find a place to sleep," I spoke. Dusty nodded and opened the door for us to hop down.

It was blindingly white out there. We were on a slushy highway that blazed straight ahead into nothing but snow, pile upon pile of drifting crystal snow that winked in the sunlight and flashed painfully in my eyes. For miles and miles around it was endlessly white.

I shaded my eyes and said, "What the hell?"

Dusty grabbed my arm and began trotting in some vague direction away from the highway. "C'mon, we can't hang around here. It would attract too much attention."

I turned to stare at him. "Dusty, we're _trying_ to attract attention."

He stopped and blinked. "Come again?"

"This ain't about stealth. Aiden's set a trap, and I don't see no way around it. We just travel about normally and hope he picks us up soon, because my butt is freezin' off here. I need to get to Jack as soon as possible."

"Hm. Right." Dusty turned in a circle in the snow a few times and yelled, "Hello!"

The sudden gust of wind swooped up his voice and flung it far across the barren hoary field, twisting his call into an eerie owlish shriek. Dusty turned back to me.

"Doesn't seem like anybody's gonna trap us for a few hundred miles here," he said succinctly.

I sighed. "Fine. Let's pitch camp."

Dusty heaved his backpack to the ground, where it thumped ominously. I stared. "What's in there?"

He shrugged. "Food. Supplies. All sorts of stuff."

I pointed. "In _there_?"

He glanced up at me. "It's a magically enhanced backpack that will fit anything and everything you need for your trip."

I cocked a brow. "Where'd ye get it, Hermes?"

I was naming a brand; Dusty thought I was naming a Greek dude. "Technically, yeah. Won it from a son of Hermes in a bet."

I rolled my eye. "Show me a tent in there and I'll be impressed."

Wordlessly he reached into his backpack-up to his shoulder, in fact-and triumphantly produced a bulging package wrapped in beige nylon. The two of us got to work pulling the tent from its sack and struggling to erect it. Pins were packed in the pocket of Dusty's satchel, so I grabbed a bunch and tried to thrust them as evenly as possible into the ground.

I turned to see Dusty laying his bare hands on the rough rectangle of snow encompassed by the pins. "What're ye doing?"

"Melting it," he said shortly.

"It'll be wet then," I pointed out.

Dusty looked up at me briefly. "I'm a son of Apollo, aren't I? I'll take care of this."

I had to grin at that. The act was so spontaneous that it took even me by surprise, but it spread a warm glow inside me. I couldn't stop smiling. I realised then with a jolt that I actually missed being happy.

Dusty was shaking his head. "I'll never understand you."

"Then don't try, mate."

"Oh, so now I'm 'mate', huh?"

I punched his shoulder and sat down my task securing the tent over both of us. Being a head taller than him and a tad stronger, it was cake.

About twenty minutes later, we were both stooping under the low canopy ceiling of our tent to survey our handiwork. Sure enough, Dusty had put his talents to good use; the ground we now stood on was completely snow-free and dry, a level floor of hard-packed dirt. We looked at each other and had to grin yet again.

I gestured at Dusty's pack. "Got any grub in that magic sack?"

Dusty reached into a side pocket and tossed me a still-cold package of bologna. I wrinkled my nose and proffered him some. He shook his head. "I don't know about you, but I'm beat." As if to physically prove his words, he collapsed against the side of the tent on top of his cushioned sleeping bag without even bothering to pull up his blanket. "So what's the plan tomorrow?" came his drowsy voice.

I shrugged. I remembered then that he couldn't see me and said aloud, "I'm not sure. Like I said, I haven't figured no way out of going to Aiden straight, so I guess he'll come for us in the mornin'."

"Or midnight," Dusty muttered.

"I'll keep watch while ye catch some winks," I suggested.

"...Don't see the point of keeping watch if we're supposed to turn ourselves in anyway."

I waved a hand at him dismissively. Even if my body screamed at me to lie down and sleep as well, my brain was too crammed with disturbing thoughts to even consider shutting down. Pensively I drew the dagger from its sheath at my back and watched its subtle, winking glint in the shaft of moonlight piercing through the flap of the tent. I shivered.

A minute later, Dusty's snores filled the tent.

T~T~T~T~T

"...She can't have gone far. The rig was parked more 'an a mile back on the highway."

"She was injured when I last saw her. I'm not even sure she was in the rig. It could have been abandoned."

I tensed. I knew that second voice, silky and deep. I knew exactly which pretty face it belonged to as well. Seemed like Damn Hypnosis-Boy was already hot on my heels.

Placing my dagger between my teeth, I bent down on all fours and crawled across the dirt floor to the nylon flap of the tent. Cautiously I lifted a corner-and froze. Two tall, masculine figures were silhouetted sharply against the full moon. They were but two feet in front of me.

How could they not see our tent?

"Are you questioning me, Colin?" snarled the first voice. Intense fury welled up inside me. Aiden.

"I know her," he went on in a low, dangerous tone. "I've known her for years. You don't know the strength built into her."

"And you do?" snapped Colin the DHB.

"Yes." Aiden sighed in frustration and turned his head away. "You forget she is also of Titan blood."

"I never did know who her father is."

Aiden laughed sarcastically. "Is it that obvious? Atlas."

There was a stunned silence. Then Colin asserted: "He had only five daughters. Nightshade died. There were only supposed to be four Hesperides."

"Oh, it's all very well that you know your history," Aiden growled impatiently. "It doesn't matter. They're wrong. And _you_ have failed in your task to bring her here."

I could see DHB worrying his lip. I forced myself to look away from his fine, proud profile and break the enchantment. "I thought you said she's already here."

"Yes," snapped Aiden. "I'm sure of it. But no thanks to you. She'll show up soon enough. She can see there's no way out o' it. And once she sees that weakling mortal in his condition, it'll snap her spirit."

His tone was savage. I couldn't help it: I shuddered.

Aiden said again, "She'll show up soon."

Well, that was where he was wrong.

I debated furiously for ten seconds in my head. Then I made a snap decision and stood up to my full height outside the tent, right behind the two. I slipped the dagger from my teeth and held it firmly in a white-knuckled fist. "Looking for somebody?"

Aiden stopped. And then strangely enough-get this-his face drained of colour. He whipped around and stared right through me. He slid his gaze back to Colin, who was watching him with a curious expression.

"Didn't ye hear that?" Aiden demanded.

DHB cocked his head for a moment. "Must 'a' been the wind," he suggested.

"But I thought I saw somethin', for a second," Aiden insisted. "And there was a voice. All ghost-like, you know. Saying something like...'looking for somebody'."

DHB stared at his companion as if he had grown an extra head-which, of course, I'd been sure of years ago. "I didn't see anything."

The two of them turned warily about, pistols in hand. They walked around the tent in a perfect circle, staring right through it. It was so frustrating and comical that I barked out a laugh.

"There it is!" DHB exclaimed this time.

Aiden's nostrils flared, which happened when he was nervous. (He rarely was.) "Sounded like somebody laughin', didn't it?"

For the first time, Colin's infuriating cool cracked under pressure. He backed away anxiously. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

Aiden didn't have to be told twice. Still pointing their guns cautiously in all directions, the two of them backed away into the snow and finally disappeared over the next icy drift.

I jumped when a hand touched my arm. It was only Dusty. "Seems like somebody's put an invisibility charm on us," he announced grimly.

I thought a minute. "Hermes again?"

"Um, I don't think so." He pointed straight ahead into the brightly lit night.

I squinted. Then I saw it: four distinct figures coming quickly our way.

"Fight or flight?" Dusty asked quickly.

"Don't bother, they're already here."

The first shadow to step forward was Sky. I almost cried in relief. But then again, I'm not a crying type of girl, so I guess that option went out the window. So before she could say another word, I stepped forward and crushed her in a fierce hug.

"Whoa," she gasped when I had finally released her. "What was _that_ for?"

I didn't bother to explain. I couldn't.

"Who are _those_ people?" I asked her, gesturing to the other three behind her. She stepped away to reveal another girl about half a head shorter than her, very willowy and with blazing red waves cascading down her shoulders and with huge icy blue eyes. With a pang I remembered Jewel.

The other two were boys. The shorter one-who wasn't actually short by far, since he was my height-was lean and muscular with messy sandy hair and tanned skin. He had a shimmering bow strapped to his back, and he held the red-haired girl's hand. The other guy was just a tad taller than me, with quite overgrown auburn hair similar to the girl's, and darker sky blue eyes. He was more intimidatingly built, but he had a friendly, half-innocent and half-badass smile that mirrored the redheaded girl's exactly.

"I'm Winnie," the redheaded girl said first. I could tell she could be the bossy, hyper type. "That's short for Wynter. Wynter Popplewell, which is the dorky name my dad gave me."

"Are you _sure_ that's your real name?" chuckled the redheaded guy. "Last time I heard, you were Deirde Haine! Or are you back to using Poppy Lowell?"

"Oh, stop it," Winnie said petulantly.

I eyed the foursome warily.

"I'm Jasper Popplewell," the guy added as an afterthought to me. He indicated Wynter. "Her half-brother."

Dusty was already shoving forward to shake the blond boy's hand. "Haven't seen _you_ in a while, Zac!" he exclaimed.

"Er, Dusty?" I asked.

He turned back to me. "This would be Zac Heyerdahl. He's in my cabin."

I flicked an eye back to the blond boy called Zac. "So, Apollo, huh?"

Zac grinned affably and shifted his bow. "I guess it's that obvious, right?"

I narrowed my eye at Dusty and Apollo side by side. "I don't suppose ye have the same mum, do you?"

Dusty pretended to be horrified. "Oh, no, I'm _ages_ older than him."

Zac had to be at least sixteen. Zac and I both looked at him.

Dusty shoved a hand into his pocket self-consciously. "Never mind. Long story."

I turned back to Sky. "So were you the one that cast the invisibility mumbo-jumbo business on our tent?"

The Athena girl shook her head. "Actually, Winnie did."

"My mom is Hecate," Wynter explained shortly. I nodded in thanks.

"Aren't ye with the Hunters?" I questioned Sky.

Sky ran a lean, pale hand through her hair. I noted that the bandage around her neck was no longer stained a morbid black. She must be nearing the end of her monthly ghoul-bite cycle business. "I'm an adventure-hopper, remember?"

I quirked a brow at her expression.

"In short," she said, "I join the Hunters every once in a while. But I thought I recognised you and Dusty getting out of that rig back there. It seemed like you were trying to be stealthy or something, though _why _you would pitch a tent in plain sight of all Alaskan hooligans, _you_ tell _me_." She rolled her eyes sarcastically.

"We ain't tryin' to be stealthy at all," I protested. "Look, I'm all very glad that you four people came along to help us, but I'm sorry. This actually ruined my plans."

Winnie put a hand on her hip. "Assuming that you actually had a plan."

"That's just it," Dusty put in. "T here just wanted to let Aiden swoop down and take us."

Zac raised his brows. "T?" he repeated.

"That's my name," I shot back.

"Who's Aiden?" interrupted Winnie.

"I think that would be the towhead who heard her voice," said Jasper.

"We were watching from a distance," explained Sky. "Winnie was pretty sure her charm would work, but we had to make-"

"No, I was _not_ sure at all that my charm would work," Winnie protested.

Zac squeezed her hand gave her a quick peck on the head. "You were brilliant."

Sky waved a hand at all of us impatiently. "Yeah, she's absolutely gorgeous. Now let's get _in_ before the next batch marauds us."

Wordlessly I lifted the flap of the tent to let these half-strangers in.

T~T~T~T~T

"So ye didn't tell me how exactly this lot fell into your hands," I addressed Sky, direct to the point.

The daughter of Athena was seated cross-legged across from me in the rough circle all of us half-bloods had made around our fire. Her weird, unsettling bright eyes bore into me. "This lot," she said, "came along when I was hitching a ride to follow your rig."

"Wait-w-what?"

Jasper reveled in the chance to tell the story. "Sky means that she dropped out of the sky and rode the top of the truck you were in all the way to Alaska."

Sky scowled at his pun.

I glanced at her keenly. In my mind's eye, I could clearly picture her in a Hunter's glowing raiment, her bow strapped across her back and a spear in hand as she leaped onto the top of the van in a hunter's crouch.

Winnie shot me an apologetic look when she saw the confusion on my face. "Sorry, I'm projecting."

"You're _what_?"

"Projecting," said Zac. "She can tell a story through pictures in people's heads. Jasper prefers the verbal method. Much more fancy."

Jasper sighed and rolled his eyes.

"You make it sound all very cool, but it's not really something I can control, you know," Winnie said with a modest blush. I picked it up then that Zac must be her boyfriend. Up till this moment, the two hadn't let go of each other's hands.

"Anyway," Jasper resumed, "Winnie here had just teleported us to Montana to visit a friend, when we saw Sky drop down on top of the van. We figured she was up to something, because we saw she was a Huntress and all."

In my mind, Winnie shifted the movie-picture-thing to show her, Zac, and Jasper flashing in on Montana soil and looking up to see Sky sailing by. Winnie took her companions' hands again and teleported them to the top of the van, appearing in front of Sky. Sky looked mildly surprised, but apparently recognised them from camp.

"Sky explained the situation to us, that you seemed to be on a quest of some sort, and you looked like you needed help. So we all rode the van until we saw Hermes leave. We hung back a bit and saw you and your brother doing your tent business, and then Winnie cast her magic stuff," Jasper finished.

"We ain't on a quest," I repeated petulantly. "And Dusty is _not_ my brother!"

Dusty hid a grin behind his hand. "I think you resemble me," he muttered.

"I so do not!" I shot back, glaring at him through my one eye.

"Anyway," Sky interrupted, "we thought we'd be able to help you, whatever it is you're doing."

"Yeah, I got that part," I said. "This is some heavy stuff."

The four new arrivals lookd at each other in puzzlement, then back at me.

"Demigod stuff is always heavy," Jasper ventured.

"Heavier than that," I said. "This is like...gang wars."

Winnie's already huge ice eyes widened.

"And where do you fit in all of this?" Zac addressed Dusty.

My companion shrugged. "Um, dragged in by an IM, I guess?"

"On the upside, gangs are mortal affairs, right?" Zac chirped.

I grinned sarcastically. "Ye _think_?"

"You mean...they're not," said Winnie flatly. "It's a half-blood gang."

I nodded. "This enemy gang's kidnapped the leader of my gang. Well..." I bit my lip. "Well, okay, our group's pretty much disbanded, on account o' my skedaddlin'. But this guy Aiden took Jack, my...friend. And somethin' evil's brewing."

It was Winnie's turn to roll her eyes and say, "You think?"

"So how can we help?" Sky cut in, as grim and to-the-point as always.

I glanced around at our newfound friends. "Ye have any special powers?"

"Well, my mother is also Hecate," Jasper said. "And, er, my father's Kronos. So there's illusions and time control for you."

Dusty raised his brows at 'Kronos', but being an ignorant gangster, I didn't know what the fuss was, so I turned to Zac.

"Archery," he shrugged modestly. "Summoning sunlight, all that glittery Apollo stuff. Healing. Actually, whatever Dusty here can do."

Winnie looked stumped. "I'm still trying to inventory my new powers," she explained.

"New powers?" I asked.

"I got a new body from Gaia a few months back," she said. "I can manipulate people's minds okay, I guess."

"You mean the Mist?" Dusty said.

"No, people's minds. I can erase part of their memories or influence them to do something."

I whistled. "Useful."

"I can also teleport, which Jasper can sometimes do as well. The invisibility charm you saw, and other silencing charms and things."

"Good if there are any watchdogs around," Dusty muttered. I resisted the urge to smack something.

"Oh, and I almost forgot. I can shapeshift."

My eye slowly widened. "Ye can _what_?"

"It's easier to show you," Sky said practically. She nodded to Winnie.

Reluctantly the flame-haired girl got to her feet. She bit her lip. "I could try you."

I shrugged.

Winnie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had her palms out flat facing the floor in front of her, her fingertips pointed in my direction. Automatically I stiffened; I didn't know what to do. It turned I didn't have to do anything after all. She took a few more deep breaths and knit her brows together, concentrating. Then there was a blinding flash of light and a bang like the snap of lightning and thunder. We all flung up our hands instinctively to shield our eyes.

When at last I lowered my arm, my jaw dropped. My perfect twin was towering under the low ceiling of the tent, with her jacket and pants a jolly five inches too short.

"Brilliant," I gasped.

I was already forming a plan.

**A/N: And that's the end of this update for now. Again, I'm so sorry for my lack of updates the past two months! I certainly hope I made up for it with these two chapters and didn't disappoint you. At any rate, thank you so much for your past reviews, and please, please, **_**please **_**give me feedback-tell me your thoughts! Thank you. =)**

**~Katrina Mae**


	15. Chapter 15: Here, There, Anywhere

**A/N: Cripey Internet access around here. The only sane enough explanation for this delay. Anyway, before somebody sensible enough to behead me comes along, please forgive me for my tardiness and read on! =)**

Chapter 15: I'm Here, I'm There, I'm Nowhere

Of all the damnedest darling things to be done on a quest-or "quest"-finding clothes for the bossy, sarcastic, cringingly profane blazing-haired midget daughter of Hecate was the hardest. Repeat: The. Hardest.

As it turned out, Wynter Galjin Koke Popplewell (no wonder her mother left Winnie's father for giving her a name like that) was not a hair more than five feet tall with her voluminous locks already piled up. I was practically five ten, so if she were to shapeshift into me with ease while running around, there was no way she could have my long skinny jeans, size 39 Converses, and fully-sleeved-and-armed black leather jacket. _Especially_ not that jacket. Heck, that was my baby and I wasn't about to lose it again.

"Game plan?" demanded Sky as I impatiently tapped my foot while Winnie-back to her tiny self-scrunched up her eyes painfully in the effort to conjure some decent article of modesty.

"We wait," I said tersely.

Dusty gave a nervous half-cough, half-laugh. "Well, I think what she means is that we wait for Aiden and his crew to get over here and...uh...'capture' us."

Jasper caught on immediately. "So one of the Taras-either the real one or the fake-goes along, while the other follows discreetly behind and does the real business."

I cleared my throat. "Very flowerily put. Yeah."

Jasper protested, "That wasn't flowery!"

"Jasper," Winnie hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm trying to concentrate-oh!"

In a flash Zac was at her side, cradling her seemingly frail form when she swayed a moment on her feet. On the floor was a large pile of assorted clothing: tank tops, jeans, cargoes, vests, boots, belts...even artillery...yeah, weapons were clothing.

"Brilliant," I said. "Winnie, we agreed ye can't be totin' around pants. You'll trip."

"They're leggings," she pointed out.

Oh.

"Okay, all XY chromosomes, get out so Wynter can change," said Sky, snapping her fingers. "Quick, quick. Dusty! You too."

Grumbling, the sons of Apollo and Hecate shuffled out.

"Gah, what to do with all this grubby stuff?" I complained with a dagger-worthy glare when I tripped and barely caught myself over the mound of extraneous cotton material.

"Sorry," said Winnie. "It's hard to control my powers."

"As ye said."

"The Hunters could always use some extra wardrobe," spoke Sky.

We both paused and looked at her.

The daughter of Athena shrugged and scooped up the the bundle in her arms. "Well, what do you expect, with a pack of cosmetic-free, wild-hearted man-haters running around the forest all the time? Shoes get lost. Clothes get ripped. Heck, hair goes up in a bees' nest. I mean, unless you're Lady Artemis."

"Figgers." I pursed my lips, totally ignoring Sky's snide description of her own clan, and asked Winnie, "How long can you hold th' enchantment?"

"Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, or else we'd have pushed that aside and pranced into Lord Snotty Aiden's lair as doubles with me morphing in and out of gigantism and dwarfism, 'cause that's just how brilliant we are. I don't know how long I can hold it. Honestly."

"No matter," I said impatiently, and began to pace. Take my word on this: when you're five foot nine and a half and pacing a six-by-six tent pitched by two cranky teenagers, you're bound to get on the bus to Frustration Boulevard. "Then when they come for us, ye stay back and shift into me right away. Thataways, you must be covered for a while longer."

"Are you suggesting that I do the scouting around for your friend's whereabouts? Then what's the whole point of the shapeshifting business?"

"I'm comin' to that," I snapped, and instantly regretted my tone. "Sorry. Just tired... No, Wynter, _you_ will go as me when Aiden the dog comes an' captures us."

"Jeez, you really have a thing for this guy, don't you?" remarked Sky.

I was saying, "While ye're do-"

But Winnie was already shaking her head. "I don't know Helios' holy hurlings about you and Aiden. I'm not a pessimist, but even worse clairvoyants than me would bet you the value of this country that he'll sniff out the ruse right away."

"-Not like this country _does_ have any money value," I muttered. "Th' point is, _I_ know Aiden, and I'd know how his dirty mind works. I can find Jack fast." My throat tightened involuntarily at the name; more than once I had to swallow it down. "You...even if he'll know what's going on, he'll still have t' find me."

"You know, I know Wynter's so humble and all, but your doubt in her abilities is starting to seriously piss me off," Sky said flatly. "Wynter and Jasper both have a keen sense of tracking."

"It's all about the auras," Winnie rejoined. "You know, mine is blue, Jasper's is purple, T's here is dark green-something about the color and intensity of a half-blood's greatest power, inherited from their pare-"

I waved my hands in front of my face at them for quiet. "A'ight. Fine. I get it. Just, _don't_ get nerdy on me, okay?"

"My Winnie is the last thing from nerdy," came Zac's muffled-but nonetheless miffed-voice from outside the canvas.

"Shut it!" I roared.

Dusty, quite unbidden, shoved his head round the flap. Once he'd ascertained that we were all modestly arrayed, the rest of his body materialized behind him. "Why is this a conclave? We should know the game plan too."

I rolled my eyes-well, eye-as the three males poured in and invited themselves to the meeting. "Fine. Y'all come up with a fireproof, DHB-proof, _Aiden_-proof plan. If all else fails, I'm chargin' ahead and gettin' Jack out. No questions asked."

"No prayers said, either?" Jasper quipped.

Winnie rolled her eyes ostentaciously at him. "FYI, my record's off the chart with Old Man Hades, brother. Praying would do zilch."

I sighed. "Half-Titan standin' over here with a headache. Hear, hear."

"What if there were three Taras?"

All our chatter squealed to a halt. We swiveled towards Dusty as one. "What?"

"Okay, so I imagine this Aiden guy's hideout's gonna have three major parts: gate with guards, underground dungeon, and his oh-so-high-and-mightiness throne room," Dusty postulated. "That means we need one Tara to distract most of the guards on the ramparts, another one to run around and find Jack, and one to keep Aiden at bay. Preferably the real one. Plus, when the guards see who they think is the wanted Tara, the alarms will pour in and turn him up in a fuzzle."

"Me name's T," I growled through clenched teeth, "and that is the plan of an idiot."

Dusty blinked. "What the heck?"

I swallowed. My throat was suddenly and mortifyingly dry. "I will not see any of you die for me. I led a gang before: my responsibility is to protect my friends. I will see to it that no one standing here this moment wastes their life doing what is my job, and my job alone. Hell, not by the hand of th' devil will I let tha' happen."

"Well, considering the temperament of our ol' Greek devil, it's likely to happen."

Sky shot Winnie a silencing glare. "Wynter. You're not helping."

Winnie dismissed her with a wave and turned her large blue eyes directly on me. "T, I don't know how to say this...at least not without risking a deadly left hook from you. But the point is, you're not the leader of your gang anymore. You have five people who stand here before you, ready to fight to the death for you-yet not only for you, but even more so for the cause of Olympus. You're here to save Jack and settle things with Aiden. That is your business; I wouldn't stop you. Heck, I'd say right on. But there's something bigger going on here, as you said yourself: the rise of a Titan army. They want you-Aiden wants to use you. When they have you, the link is found and their strength complete. We've got to stop them. We've _all_ got to stop them."

I rocked back on my heels, astounded. "What d'ye mean about a link?"

Winnie bit her lip and glanced askance at her brother Jasper, who offered the subtlest of nods. Zac's own sunny features had set into a grim mask, as if he knew precisely what Wynter was talking about. The daughter of Hecate laid a pale freckled hand on my arm. "I'm clairvoyant...of sorts. I mentioned it to you a while ago, T. I have visions, though usually they're more symbolic than literal. But yesterday I had one of the most vivid experiences I've ever had. Your enemy Aiden clearly wants you, because he has gathered the children of every single Titan-but you. If he has you, the ancient Titan magic will bind your strength together, and the Titans will rise up again to reclaim the throne from the Olympians. All he needs is you."

T~T~T~T~T

Ever get the feeling that the weight of the whole world just descended on your shoulders?

I'm betting ten thousand pounds you're feeling the irony of that thought right now, seeing that my own father literally does that every day.

"Bloody hell," was the most coherent thing I could come up with to say.

"On that note, I see the proper conclusion is that T should not be convinced to join Aiden's ranks. Ever," said Zac.

I was now rubbing my brow at such a frenetic pace that Sky gave me a look as if I'd just ground the skin off my forehead. "Like hell that'll happen. Fine, Dusty, your plan goes."

It took a moment for them to comprehend me. Then, like a silent bang, they simultaneously exhaled in relief. Obviously none of them had expected me to capitulate so easily. Even I was shocked myself.

"I just want to get in, come out, with Jack, all in one piece and _alive_," I said fervently.

Winnie nodded. "Okay, so now here's what we do."

T~T~T~T~T

There'd been a change of plans-we were no longer to wait for Aiden or Colin to show up, since more than likely they had already been spooked off out of their wits from this area in the snow. It turned out that Jasper had a pretty nifty power of simply closing his eyes and being able to see the layout of the land in bird's eye view for miles around. Winnie, in turn, joined her power with her brother's to add her skill of tracking, projecting the image in our mind complete with the setup of Aiden's camp and the auras of the people moving around.

"By the way, who's Jack's parent?" Winnie asked casually.

I paused. "He's an orphan."

"Yeah, but his godly parentage."

"Erm...he's a mortal."

Winnie broke off to blink up at me in owlish surprise. "He's mortal?"

"Uh, yeah." I scowled. "Got a problem with that?"

"Heck, no!" To my immense astonishment, she broke out into a wide and toothy grin. "It just makes my job all the easier. All mortals' auras are silvery white or almost clear. I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that there are no friendly or conscious mortals wandering around Aiden's camp, so your friend Jack would be the only one on the map with a mortal's aura."

I breathed a covert sigh of relief, then concentrated again as Winnie's projected map returned to my mind. True enough, she soon zeroed in on a dot on the map with a white aura. It was off to the side and was not moving.

"Seems like the prison is in the east wing," Sky noted. "It's arranged with four wings corresponding with the cardinal directions. The gate's at the south...oh, there are four guards. This can't be good."

I lifted an eyebrow.

"They all have dark red auras, and they're especially thick," Winnie said. "That has to mean they're all offspring of some Titan war god or something."

"With heavy macho training," Dusty added.

I lifted my other eyebrow.

"T, whatever _are_ you looking at all of us like that for?" Wynter burst out. "If you know something, say something!"

"I ain't the Missing Children ad," I bristled.

"That's 'If you see something, say something'," Winnie pointed out. "Now out with it."

I exhaled. "Well, Dusty and Sky here probably have an idea already why this _is_ going to work. The rest of y'all don't. Me dad's Atlas."

Zac's mouth opened. Jasper stared. Winnie just blinked. Their reactions were so varied that had I actually been irresponsible enough to take my mind off the fact that six lives were in the balance here, I would have burst out laughing.

"But Atlas' only daughters are the Hesperides," Zac protested.

"There was Zoe Nightshade," Wynter reminded him. "Remember? Percy told us."

"Yeah, but it was _only_ Zoe outside the four."

"I'm standin' here," I pointed out. "Are you people goin' to argue about me parentage like damn darling idiots when Sky here saw me claimed? Th' point is, I can take 'em down. The guards, I mean."

Jasper cocked a brow. "Are you sure? You're hardly trained."

I rolled them a totally _duh_ stare. "Gang leader here, remember? People, stop with the arguing!" I quickly changed tack. "So how to do we split into three Ts? Only Wynter can shapeshift."

"Glad you mentioned splitting," Winnie answered. "I'll be doing most of that around here. I'll split my essence into a mindless body and a real one. The mindless one can be given simple directions, like walk around in that direction and attract the guards. As soon as they're distracted, the real me - or the real Tara-me - will run back and get Jack out. Meanwhile you, T, will get down to business with this Aiden guy."

"Sweet," I murmured. "Let's get dressed."

T~T~T~T~T

What was so eerie about this still night was that it was just that: still. No birds, no crickets, no nothing. Only our feet crunching through the snow as we followed the map that Wynter was projecting into our minds toward Aiden's camp. Dusty and Zac had gotten to work melting the snow in our immediate path to make as little noise as possible.

Soon we came to a copse of lonely pine trees.

"See? Just like I said," Winnie whispered at my side. "Now, T, go."

I hesitated. "Can I take Dusty with me?"

Dusty raised a brow in my direction. "Missing me already, 'mate'?"

I growled, "On the contrary, I'm protectin' your pathetic butt and makin' sure ye don't raise havoc."

"But that's what we're doing."

I flashed him the hilt of my dagger. "Shut it."

He took one look at Black Light, gulped slightly, and nodded.

I turned back to the rest of the group, who were watching me with silent fear yet confidence in their eyes. "We part here," I said, offering my hand to each of them. "Best of luck. Sky, good sparrin' with you."

The bright-eyed daughter of Athena flashed me a sly grin. Then she, Zac, Jasper, and Wynter were off like bullets through the snow.

I squared my shouders. "C'mon, bro. Time to play deaf, dumb, and finally dead."

We moved as a unit toward the edge of the camp. Every single instinct honed in me was screaming for me to seek the nearest back door, but I wasn't going to listen to my years of gang training now. I had to be brave.

Sure enough, there were four guards standing rather vigilantly at the surprisingly broad gate that had been fashioned of sturdy pine logs lashed together. Each guy, decked out in bristling armour, looked more spine-chilling than the last. The air reeked of alcohol, but these guys were unnaturally sober. Hell, what I'd give for a bit of that tolerance.

As my foot stepped deliberately over a pine twig and snapped it in half, one of the taller guards swept up his spear and called, "Stop! Who's there?"

I motioned to Dusty in the darkness and stepped up into the light of the electric lanterns. "I'm here to see Aiden."

Two of the other guards leaned out to peer closely at me; then the eyes of the shortest one widened. "It's 'er!"

"Fine, take them in," the one with the spear said impatiently. "I'll keep the kid out here. Take another one with you. Boss said she's a nasty one."

The short one gave me an infuriating once-over, lingering over my scarred blind eye and missing finger. "I'd say. Hussle, lady."

I flicked the slightest nod askance at Dusty. He'd been watching for my move all along, and in a blink, he thrust out his hands and shot out a huge blinding flash of the whitest light I'd ever seen. The sheer energy of it made my ears ring.

I squinted and leaped through the beam toward the end he left clear enough for me to see and attack. Ever muscle in me tightened, and my body sprang into instinct. I tackled the one with the spear from behind, locking my left arm round his neck while I seized his weapon and crushed the wood to splinters with my other hand. He grunted and bucked me off; I flew into the air in a double back flip and came back up with a rough but feisty roundhouse. I lost my balance again, but the shortest guard was making his way blindly to us while shouting, so I grabbed onto his arm and yanked hard to get myself back up. Short Guy howled in pain as I heard the sickening pop that told me I'd pulled his arm out of its socket.

Spear Guy was back in business - with refreshments. One of the two silent guys had passed out from pure blindness and terror the instant Dusty had lit up, but the other, literally as mammoth as an ox, came raging into view. Spear Guy and Bull Guy grabbed my arms and yanked them back as far back as they could without any warning; I couldn't help it - I screamed. But Tara Fortia Wellington had not been born to scream and faint. Quelling the shriek tearing through my throat, I used their vice grips as anchors and pounced up. The sudden movement made them both tumble to the ground, and one let me go, while Short Guy only tightened his hold and twisted my arm around as he went down. I bit down on my tongue against the pain and the tears when I realised my left forearm and probably my collarbone had been broken.

Then an inexplicable rage took over me. It was alien and monster. The fire burst to life deep in my belly, and with a savage roar, I served Short Guy three consecutive right hooks to the jaw until he moaned and let me go. I sprang to my feet, whirled when I felt the air whistle, and headbutted the now recovered Bull Guy. He grunted and tried to grapple me by the shoulders, but I pulled my arms back - no matter how much they hurt - drove my head into his gut, and rammed him into the very solid pine gatepost. He gasped and blinked, then sagged into the snow, winded. I whipped out my dagger from my back and brandished its flashing blade in his face in case he got any funny ideas.

A blur of flashing yellow light told me that Dusty was making quick work of the gate, burning down the lock. With a resounding explosion that sent waves echoing through my ears, the entire frame of the gate collapsed.

We both sprang through the entrance and leaped for the shadows as shouts and thundering feet greeted us. Dusty drew me in back farther, and I hissed when he touched my broken limb.

Dusty threw me a questioning look, then glanced at my neck and arm to see the unusually sharp contusions there. Wordlessly he reached into his satchel and gave me a square of ambrosia.

I took it with a nod of thanks, then dropped it in the snow with a barely suppressed yelp when it burned my fingers. "I can't eat that," I whispered.

Dusty picked it back up and sniffed it. "Why not? It's perfectly fine."

"Dusty! Titan blood, remember?"

He looked at me for a minute, then finally nodded. "Makes sense. Sorry, I didn't think. Are your fingers okay?"

"Singed but fine. 'Sokay. Not your fault. C'mon, we have to move in now. Nearly all the guards have gone out." I raised my head and let out the brief and eerie cry of a golden eagle - our signal to Winnie to get moving with her own decoy.

Aiden's camp was not made of tents; it was an immense log house with row after row of barred windows that told me he had several floors, endless stairs, and hundreds of vigilant guards. Dusty and I ducked through the open and scuttled into the shadow of the building. I risked a peep over the windowsill at my head and breathed a subtle sigh of relief when there was no sword or gun immediately pointed in my face. I beckoned to Dusty with my head to help me with the bars.

Dusty streamed out a dull but fiercely hot glow of steady energy at the base of the bars, while I used my somewhat recovered and still functional right hand to pry them out. In a matter of three minutes, I had bent enough bars in the middle to let us both in. Dusty shut off his hands and crawled in, then helped my through.

We now stood in what appeared to the back door to a large room, gauging the distance of the door in front of us to those down the hallway to the left. In fact, now that I cocked my head to the side and listened closely, I could make out several snotty male voices issuing from that room ahead.

"That's the throne room," Dusty whispered. "I still remember the map. Winnie said it would be in this area."

I nodded, gestured for silence, and listened some more.

It seemed like an eternity, but then, at long last, I heard it: Winnie's answering call of the hawk's shrill cry. I couldn't help a wry grin to myself at the girl's feisty spirit.

"Come on, mate, we've got a party to crash."

Dusty grinned, and together, we laid hands on the doorknob and pushed it open.

I had to gasp.

I was standing in the center of the dim and immense throne room, surrounded by seven guards with spears pointed at me.

Well, not _me_. It was Winnie, the replica of me. _I_ was standing with Dusty behind the huge carved wood throne that must have seated none other than His Lord Vileness Aiden, so Winnie - in my disguise - could see me over his shoulder. Her eyes flicked once at me and then moved away, giving no sign to the others around that she'd seen anyone.

What had me gaping next was the creature that stood slightly behind her, equally guarded. His black clothes were rent to reveal filthy skin streaked with mud and blood. His dark green shirt had ripped in half down the front due to the savage festering fash across his chest, and his matted and blood-cloated hair fell over sunken eyes in a besmirched and gaunt face. His hands were shaking; he clenched them into fists.

"Jack?" I whispered soundlessly.

I wanted to cry.

"I should have known you'd use the back door," said an all-too-familiar-and-may-bloody-well-go-to-hell voice. Aiden's dark golden head rose above the top of the throne as he stood and descended to stand a few feet from Winnie. "All this time, and I didn't know you well enough to figure out you really are a sneak. Luckily, I double-guarded every post for this night, and you. Were. Caught."

Winnie lifted her chin. "Who's the sneak, Aiden? Who killed Mikey and Jewel behind Jack's back?"

My mouth fell open. Winnie had my exact voice and accent down pat, all right, but how in all the faces of Olympus, earth, and Tartarus had she ever found out about Mikey and Jewel?

And then I knew. Her shapeshifting abilities not only lent her the body and words of a person, but also their memories.

Aiden snarled. "You're reminding me of inconsequential things, _Tara_. You're here right now because you have something I want. Give it to me, and you and your pathetic Jack Avalon can have your freedom. Trust me, you don't want _him_ in captivity again." Aiden took a step forward to brush a finger down her cheek.

Jack snarled and lunged for Aiden, but the guards pressed the tips of their spears into his back. He cried out once and sank back.

Aiden ignored him.

Winnie leaned back with a totally unimpressed look, merely raising a fine brow. I wanted to shout in applause. She was the perfect model of my sarcasm. "Whoa, Supersnakeboy, you rule. _In hell_. What's yer deal?"

"Give me Black Light."

Winnie's expression just then mirrored mine exactly. "Me dagger?"

Aiden cocked his head to the side, studying Winnie's mask face. "Yes. Yes, dear _Tara_, your dagger."

Winnie, just as I would, had to breathe deeply for half a second before the snarling rage set on. "Whatever _for_?"

"Oh, I can't exactly tell you that, can I?" Aiden stroked the light stubble on his chin and paced tightly back in forth in front of Winnie. "You see, knowing you, Tara - and I assure you, I definitely know you now - you'd only go back and spread the news to all your little Olympian pals, so then what would be the point of you going free?" He sniggered. Then he snapped his fingers, and the guards prodded Jack forwards. In a movement too quick evenf or me to follow, Aiden unsheathed a dagger from his leather boot and held the point against Jack's through. "Or perhaps you'll need a little incentive?"

The rage roared free from me again. I stepped boldly out into the light. "Uh-uh, mister. I don't think so."

**A/N: Lo and behold! It is a cliffie! Well, lately I've been reading some really great but cliffhanger-ish books a lot (such as **_**Tiger's Quest**_**, the second book of the Tiger Saga - I **_**definitely**_** recommend it to you all, by the way), and I now fully know how it feels to be on the receiving end of a cruel cliffie, so I shall be merciful and give you another chapter. But on your way there, please review! =) Thanks!**


	16. Chapter 16: The Kiss of Death

Chapter 16: The Kiss of Death

Aiden whirled.

I'd always thought that nothing could break Aiden's infuriating cool. Turned out I just had.

For one eternal minute, Aiden said nothing, but glanced back and forth in overt confusion between the guarded Tara in front of him and me at his side. Wynter's face showed nothing but blank shock; apparently she had forgotten that it had been really _my_ role to confront Aiden while she escaped with Jack.

At the precise moment, an alarm blared over our heads, making us all stumble in surprise. There was the ominous tramp of rushing feet, and then the front door of the throne room burst open, and ten more half-Titan guards spilled in with a seemingly unconscious third T in their grasp.

I would have bought Aiden's expression just then for ten billion pounds. "What is the meaning of this?" he roared.

Jack swooped down for the prostrate duplicate of me, who now that I looked more closely had a swollen eye and a bloodied lip; but his guards had recovered quickly and now pressed him back with sullen glares. I glimpsed through his muddied face and saw raw panic in his eyes.

"It's a Happy Birthday surprise, _dog_," Winnie snarled. Kudos to her for being the first to recover.

Quick as a cobra, Aiden shot out his hand and dragged me into full view by the neck. Gods, he was strong. Stronger than strong. His grip around my throat left me beyond winded and gasping.

"Feels familiar, don't it, Tara?" he hissed in my face.

"Let 'er go!" Winnie shouted.

Aiden turned to her. "Or what? If you're the real Tara, you'll grant my simple request. Give me your dagger, and your mortal friend over there will go free."

My face felt like it was turning blue; at any rate, I could have sworn there were ice blocks piling up around my head from the loss of air. "Yer word's as good as the dirt under me foot," I managed to gasp out. "Why don't ye risk an oath on th' Styx?"

There was a sullen rumble beneath us as the words left my mouth.

Aiden regarded me calmly, but something unsettled flickered at the back of his eyes before he turned away again. As his fingers loosened the slightest fraction from my neck, there was a sudden savage shout, and a blur of figures were upon him.

I fell to the freezing packed earth with a thud like an extra heavy life-sized rag doll, clutching my broken arm and barely suppressing a whimper. All I could do was lie there helplessly and watch as Sky, Zac, and Dusty emerged eerily from the shadows like wraiths and shot arrow after arrow with deadly precision at the guards. Auburn-headed Jasper and none other than Jack were grappling on the ground now with Aiden, who snarled and struck out in the most tender areas - throats, eyes, and elbows. The dirty cheater!

With a will I'd never known myself before to possess, I summoned a bone-chilling battle cry and leaped into the melée. Never before had I used a dagger to attack, but now it was kill or be killed. With all my wrath spilling from me, I drew Black Light and slashed everywhere that an enemy blocked my way. Cries and sounds of steel filled my ears. I should have felt guilty about this bloodlust coursing through my veins, but I was no helpless girl who left her friends to defend her. I was Tara Wellington, the sixth daughter of the Titan Atlas, and I would win at all costs.

Some twenty minutes later, with twitching bodies sprawled around us, I found myself back to back with none other than Winnie, who in the effort of the battle had inevitably slipped out of her disguise and was back to her tiny, sweaty, redheaded self. Her braid swung out like a whip as she literally lunged across the room at a menacing half-blood still engaged with a losing Zac. She shouted something in a foreign language, and with a silent bionic bang that left me reeling, a ring of roaring blue fire erupted around the enemy. Then she ran him through.

I couldn't help it. I cringed.

My adrenaline was wearing off from standing still too long.

There was a whistle directly behind me. At the last possible thousandth of a second I whirled and thrust my dagger straight ahead into the chest of my attacker. His formidable axe swayed in the air and then came crashing down as he fell; I leaped out of the way in a loose backflip and caught the axe by its handle with my uninjured shoulder before it could behead Jack. He'd leaped across the room to help me a second before.

My body shuddered under the weight of the axe. I slid it off, and it clanged against the frozen ground. I raised my gaze to Jack's.

His eyes were dark and veiled, unsure as he scanned my face. "Are you the real T?"

"I wish I could say, but I can't," I said shortly. I gulped, shoved him in the opposite direction, and turned away towards a yelling hooligan before he could be injured or ask me anymore questions that I couldn't answer. It was for his protection that he not know at the moment who I really was.

It really didn't matter, I saw the next second as I stabbed the burly mud-haired girl in armor wielding a scimitar, because Winnie had snapped her fingers during her brief respite, and the inert version of me lying unnoticed had disintegrated into a pale blue smoke which flew straight into her heart. Winnie blinked a few times, and then seemed to regain her orientation and resumed the battle with higher energy.

I supposed she needed the magic.

That was my last thought before a blow struck me across the back so hard that I staggered forward and fell on my hands and knees. I screamed when my arm was jostled. Then I struggled up.

"So now I have the real you, _Tara_," Aiden hissed, tilting my chin up.

I headbutted him and flipped to my feet. He reeled back a few paces before advancing towards me again with renewed vengeance on his face.

He stopped a few feet in front of me. "Give me your dagger," he said.

I blinked to clear my spinning head. "I think ye've played the Jack-can-go-safely card once too much, mate," I snarled. "I ain't givin' you _hell_ without a fight."

"I. Need. That. Knife," said Aiden, low and lethal, as he paced slowly in my direction. With that moment, something clicked in the air, and all the fury and energy phsyically drained from me. I sagged on my feet and watched him: for there was something suddenly hypnotising about his gait as he paced back and forth, back and forth. I noted irrelevantly that there was a shallow scratch across his left cheek from the ear to the jaw which lent him a menacing, attractive look.

I sighed tiredly. "Tell me why ye want the blade, Aiden, and I'll decide if ye really need it or not. I'm tired of your games."

A long step brought him abruptly right in front of me, and his dark golden eyes burned into mine for a long, silent moment before he answered. All battle noise had ceased, my mind registered; we were the centre stage.

"Your dagger has the power of your father," he said softly. "Atlas was the last ally we need. Tara, you have burst into my camp and destroyed nearly everything I've built. These half-bloods here are all injured, some even killed. Can't you see? I've been working for the freedom of the Titans. If you don't help us, Tara, people like _you_ will be destroyed by the petty wars of the gods. It's time for us to take power."

I couldn't focus. "My dagger has Atlas' power?"

Aiden closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, an expression I'd never seen in him before. "It is Stygian iron, but it was made long ago, when Titans ruled. It was your father's."

I finally had enough coordinated muscles to take a faltering step back. "But - no. No. Ye don't want the knife. Ye want..._me_."

Aiden looked away. His voice sounded strangely hoarse. "I'd been hopin' for that."

"Aiden," I said. "How d'ye expect me to be yer ally when you've trapped me in fires, strangled me in the snow, blinded me, and stolen me only friend Jack? What are ye tryin' to say?"

"That that wasn't me!" he cried.

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

"That wasn't me," Aiden repeated. "I tried to fight it. I swear I did. But my father tried to make me kill you. He said you were distracting me from my goal. He tried to control me!"

"Who's yer father?"

Aiden gulped. "Prometheus."

"The fire-wielder," Sky gasped.

I glanced askance at the Huntress. She, along with the rest of my friends, had stood aside to watch the conversation play out, now that the immediate threat of the guards was gone.

"I swear I never meant to hurt you, Tara," Aiden whispered. "I...I love you."

My breath caught in my throat. The next thing I knew, I'd drawn back my fist and slugged him soundly in the jaw. He staggered back. "Ye lying bastard! Don't you ever dare use that on me!"

Aiden straightened. I stood braced for a fiery attack, but it never came. His dark eyes were broiling beneath the surface, but he stood with his arms loosely at his sides, as if awaiting more from me. He did not step back or taunt me.

After a long silence, I asked, "How could you?"

"I told you. I tried to fight it. I'm fighting it now."

I shook my head. "No. I'm asking how could you love me? Ye know I love Jack. And...and all those years, ye hated me."

Suddenly the wind whipped and raged around us, and I cried out involuntarily when my feet were lifted out from under me. Somebody's warm hand grasped mine, and a voice was calling my name. The next moment, the storm had ceased, and Aiden and I were standing face to face as before, but this time it was in an immeasurably cold and dark place full of faint voices and whistling wind.

"Where the hell am I?" I demanded.

"I had to talk to you somewhere alone," said Aiden.

"Ye didn't answer my question."

His shoulders lifted in a subtle sigh. "I can't answer that, Tara. I'm a twisted and evil person. I don't deserve love from anyone."

"That wasn't what I was asking about."

"I know."

I paused, yet again struck by this unprecedented change in his manner. It was the side of him I had never once seen before. "If ye really love me, Aiden, you'll let me go. Let me and Jack go."

"But I'm too selfish for that." There was a catch in his voice. "I know you hate me. I hate myself too. But...I can't let you go. I've never let you go."

"You keep claiming to love me," I said, growing upset, "but I've never once seen it! Explain."

Taking a deep breath, Aiden stepped forward and touched my face. The moment our skin made contact, I was sucked into another dimension. The blackened room lit up to reveal dozens of shining mirrors, and in each one was an image playing like a movie.

"These are my memories," Aiden whispered.

The first one that assailed my mind was from more than four years ago, when I lay huddled on a dingy pallet, all in a sweaty stupour from the poison of my snake bite.

_Golden-headed Aiden shoved his way towards Jack, who was keeping watch over me. "Lemme sit," he said._

_ Jack glanced up. "She's fine, Aiden. Get some rest."_

_ "No, she ain't fine. I said lemme sit!"_

_ With a sigh, Jack capitulated. Aiden immediately fell on his knees beside me, a frail girl with her still long dark waves plastered to her forehead as she mumbled in her sleep. "Dammit, Jack. You should have let me see 'er sooner. This ain't no ordinary snake bite."_

_ "Well, what is it?"_

_ "Never mind," said Aiden roughly. He yanked back the soiled bandage from my wounded leg, bent his head down, and began to suck the fluid from the swollen area. He raised his head and spat, then repeated this motion several times for the next few minutes. At last he stopped, tore a strip from his relatively clean t-shirt, and cinched it around my bite._

_ "I'll see to 'er tonight," said Aiden._

_ Jack leveled a gaze at him. "I'm the leader, Aiden, and I say you go to bed. She's my responsibility."_

_ "No, she ain't, _Sir_ Jack. I saw her first. Ye'll have to fight me to get me up."_

_ Jack's dark eyes flashed as if he were seriously considering the opportunity; then, finally, he nodded once. "I'll be back in two hours. Then ye'd better be ready to obey my orders."_

_ "Aye, aye, cap'n," Aiden muttered after Jack's retreating figure. He turned back to the girl on the pallet and murmured, "I bet you have green eyes, don't you?"_

_ The girl shifted and moaned. "Shh," Aiden whispered, smoothing back the damp hair from her brow. He reached over for the basin of water, dipped a sponge in, and brushed the sweat gently from her face. "Ye know," he went on, "you look exactly like I imagined a sister would be. Never had un, but she'd have a face as sweet as yours. Lots of spirit. Long dark hair and green, green eyes." Aiden paused, then did the most unexpected: he leaned forward and pushed up an eyelid as the girl lay there. He drew back a moment later. "Not green. But looks like they're gettin' there. Guess that means you're a special un. Must 'a' been a dracaena that bit you. If you're not dead yet, that makes you a Titan-blood." Aiden let out his breath in a small huff, and the air from his mouth puffed in clouds in the frigid winter. "I hope you're a Titan. That'd make two of us, and then we could be friends."_

_ His face brightened._

The image suddenly blurred over, and a loud pinging filled my ears until the memory segued into another - that night at the table when he'd fought with me and blinded my eye.

_Tara had fallen asleep again at the table, her body slung carelessly across the chair backwards in that endearing habit she had. Her head was nodding against the wooden surface. Her woefully short dark mahogany hair was falling in little chunks around her face, so angelic and innocent when she slept. Aiden slipped into the room and paused as he studied her. Her eyes were closed, but he could just imagine them now when they were open, as vivid and lively a green as two shining emeralds. He slid across the room and settled on the table, swinging his legs briefly like he used to when he was a little boy, before he caught himself and composed his manner._

_ Tara had apparently been reading a book. Aiden marveled at the thought as he picked up the battered hardbound copy of what seemed to be _Romeo and Juliet_. Funny how he'd never seen that romantic side of her. When Tara was awake, she kept her guard up, always paranoid of everyone else and keeping most of her gentler thoughts to herself. When she talked, her tongue released barbs._

_ Aiden set down the book again and tenderly brushed a stray lock of dark hair behind Tara's ear. "T?" he ventured._

_ Tara struggled awake with a groan. She became alert almost instantly when she saw who it was. "Yeah?" she said with a note of impatience. "What?"_

_ Aiden leaned back on the table on his elbow. How he missed her face when she was sleeping, not wary and dangerous. He probably shouldn't have woken her up. But he needed an answer. He tried to laugh off his discomfort with a shrug. "I've been thinking...a lot," he began. "Thinking a lot about you."_

_ Tara gasped. Then her bright emerald eyes narrowed at him. Aiden ached inside at the clear rejection in her face. He'd asked too soon. "Quit thinking of me as a girl!" she growled. "I don't want none of your stupid advances, get it?"_

_ Aiden felt his mouth open and close idiotically. Then he sank back behind his familiar sullen shield or sarcasm. "Oh, yeah, I got it. I got it a long time ago. But this time, you're..."_

_ Suddenly there was the familiar shimmering sound of his father's spirit paying a visit. Not again, he prayed. Not now. It was important that he didn't lose Tara now._

_ But Prometheus would not relent. Unseen by the girl, he laid a heavy hand on his son's shoulder. "Didn't I tell you she would react this way? She's distracting you from your duty, Aiden. Stop thinking of her!"_

_ "But I need - we need her!" Aiden pleaded. "Just give me a chance. If I can win her over, then I promise I'll leave her alone and give you all my attention."_

_ "You never keep your promises, you sorry excuse for a son. Don't try to pull my leg with your wimpy little lies. You're obsessed with the girl, and it is time to stop it. Kill her tonight. Kill her now and get the dagger, and it will all be over."_

_ Aiden gasped. "I can't do that! I - I...she's my friend."_

_ Prometheus gave him a bitter laugh. "She's your friend? Then why does she hate you so? Look at her eyes, Aiden! She hates you!"_

_ Still Aiden was shaking his head vehemently. "It's not right. I'll...I'll just ask her for the dagger. Or steal it, if I have to."_

_ "Seems like you don't have the mettle to do even that!" Prometheus bellowed. "You're too softhearted to take what you want from a silly little fantasy sweetheart! Face the truth, Aiden. She doesn't love you, and she never will!"_

_ The blow sent Aiden reeling._

_ "Now finish what I've set you to do, or I swear, I will send someone else to kill the girl," Prometheus hissed. "This is your last chance, boy. Prove yourself, and you will reign as my heir. Fail me just once more, and you are cast out from my protection forever."_

_ With a zap, Prometheus was gone._

_ Aiden turned back to Tara from his conversation with his father, which had all passed inaudibly over less than a second. There was a visible change in Tara's manner. She was tense and erect, and even now her hand was creeping over to the dagger at her back. "Don't you even dare."_

_ Aiden's eyes flicked to her knife, then back to her face. That sweet, fierce face with eyes so large and bright. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving her to his father's wolves to feast on. No, he had to finish it. He would be the most merciful to her. If he didn't kill her now, Fates only knew what Prometheus would do to her to get Black Light._

_ Aiden whipped out his own dagger and pressed it firmly against Tara's neck, halting her advance. "Dare what?" he whispered. His voice was shaky, but it was hidden from Tara in her state._

_ Tara's eyes widened in fright, and for the slightest moment, Aiden felt a twinge of guilt. But his resolve remained firm. "Jack and the others'll be here any minute now," she breathed quickly._

_ Aiden forced on a confident smile. "Uh-uh, they won't. I've already made a few...arrangements to keep them busy."_

_ "Viper!" Tara snarled, but she was cut off when Aiden lunged and kissed her. Hard._

_ His kiss was desperate, the kiss of a dying man. But he was not the one who was dying; in less than a minute, he planned to kill the girl he loved, and he wanted to taste even one moment with her. She froze in shock, then responded with a passion he knew she possessed, but never knew she'd possessed for him. He could almost sense her emotions roiling inside her - confusion, anger, attraction, hurt. Kissing Tara was like hurling oneself off the rapids and plunging into the freezing waterfall, seeing the rocks below come closer but never knowing when one would get there. It was the exhilarating fall before the death._

_ Tara shoved him away._

_ Aiden stumbled back, blinking and disoriented for a moment. Then he saw her swiping her sleeve over her mouth, her eyes burning with hatred. Another second, and she would stab him with her knife. It was now or never. The battle had begun._

I gasped as I was set down on my feet again. Aiden had withdrawn his hand from my face, and the images in the mirrors had faded back into nothingness, leaving an aching echo behind where I could still see _his_ memories replaying in my mind.

I lifted my gaze to his face; Aiden had turned away, his dark blond hair falling in his face, shielding his dark eyes from me. The tic in his jaw and the unsteady pulse in his throat were the only clues to his emotions at that moment.

"Where am I?" I asked again, though this time more softly.

"It's called the Hall of Mirrors," he said hoarsely. "It belongs to the Oneroi."

"The what?"

"The Oneroi. The gods who patrol our sleep."

"Oh. Dream-gods?"

He shrugged and shifted, and the dim lighting gave the contours of his features a breathtaking, surreal effect. "Kind of."

"Why...why have you shown me these things?"

He waved his hand before answering me, and two stools appeared below us. He sank down like a weary old man and leaned forward, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ye asked me to explain. So I did."

I sat down, hard. "Aiden, why do you have to do this? Your father does not control you."

"But don't you see?" he cried out. "I got tangled up in this whole bloody mess afore you came along. I thought I was doing the right thing, and after all, he was my father. Then - then _you_ arrived, and things just got so...complicated. I saw you, living a life completely ignorant of this Titan-and-Olympian business, your own heritage, and you were still happy. I mean, as happy as you could be in your life. I missed that. I wanted to be friends with you, but my...my _badness_ didn't allow it. My father wouldn't let me go anymore. I'm his human link to control this army. He threatened to kill you if I tried to escape. Tara...I'm so sorry."

I leaned back, suddenly understanding everything. _Everything_. And try as I might, I could no longer summon the rage I'd felt before battling him. "Then if you care so much, Aiden, why'd ye take Jack away?"

He swallowed and risked a glance up at me before looking away again. "I had to have enough incentive t' get you over here."

"But you hurt him."

"It wasn't me. I swear. I sent Colin t' fetch Avalon, but I never meant to hurt him."

"Then why the bloody hell does 'e look like a torture victim?"

"That...that was...my father."

I stared at him. "What?"

"Prometheus was able to possess me," said Aiden bitterly. "Tara, I'm sorry. I wish I could undo everything I've done. I...please forgive me."

I said nothing for a long moment; then I stood, offering him a hand up. He took it with a quizzical look but stood up before me immediately.

"If you let us all go," I said softly, "I'll forgive you."

The craving came to life in his eyes, and then fell back dead again. His voice cracked. "I can't. I made an oath to kill you. I'm sorry, T, I wish I'd known what I was doing. I swore a long time ago to find the bearer of Atlas' blade and kill them for it. I...I never knew it was goin' to be _you_."

"Ain't there a way out of this?"

"No." He shook his head. "I'd always hoped to just get the dagger and let you go, but _he_ won't allow it. It's all a big mess, and it's all my fault. I'm bound to my oath till death."

"Aiden, I want you to know that I don't blame you for joinin' the Titans. Hell, I'd have done so if your Titans had found me instead of Thalia. But th' point is, I don't know me own father; I don't know if he'd have held me to the same kind of oath. What's done is done. What matters is how ye think of it now...don't it?"

Aiden swallowed and gazed hungrily at my face, as if drinking in every word and look I was feeding to his senses. He nodded once, then timidly reached out a hand to take my scarred one in his. "I wish I could at least heal you, Tara. Just erase the memories of the times I tried to kill you."

"They're part of me now," I said simply.

"T, just...just answer me one thing."

"...Yeah?"

"Did you...did ye ever have feelings for me?"

My breath caught. His voice was low and small, like a boy asking his first crush how she felt about him. It was impossible to believe that this was the same man who'd taken my Jack and tried to kill me and had been possessed by his self-driven father.

"I...don't know," I said slowly, honestly. "I guess I was attracted to you at some point, but every girl would be, y'know. I s'pose all I really saw was that if ye just stopped tryin' to harrass me or kill me, we could've been great friends."

Aiden nodded, seemingly satisfied. "That's enough, Tara. Thank you. I guess...I better go face the music now." He turned to exit.

"Wait!"

He paused and looked back.

"What are ye doing?"

"I'm goin' to my father now to tell him my decision," said Aiden calmly and clearly. "I'm goin' to offer him myself as a substitute. It's better to be dead than to live like this, fearing for the life of someone I love."

The last sentence had been uttered under his breath, but I had still heard it.

"You can't do that," I said. "Ye said it yourself. He'll need a link to control his army."

Aiden shrugged. "Yeah, well... Since he said that, I've arranged for him to take up a new residence in Colin, in case I died or somethin'. Colin's me righthand man. Prometheus'll have to agree."

"But the dagger. He'll still want me dagger."

"I have it."

"What?" I blinked, not comprehending, until I saw the glint of the blade in his palm. I glanced down: I was still holding Black Light firmly in my right hand.

Aiden gave me a small smile, one that was for once free of all arrogance or sarcasm, but was just a smile. "When I gave you my memories, ye gave me some o' yours too. Like findin' that knife in a dump. I could see it clearly and recreate it."

I was gaping at the knife, amazed at the perfect replica. "But how - ?"

"I'm the son of Prometheus. I'm also a fire-wielder. That means to a certain extent, I can create small things from metal."

"Aiden, why?"

He paused. "I can't let you die."

I walked the few paces forwards to him and took his hand in my left one, ignoring the jab of pain in the broken bone, and leaned my forehead against his.

"Tara, what are you doing?"

"I'm giving you a gift to say good-bye," I whispered. Then I kissed him.

All my senses were heightened in this magical hall of mirrors and dreams. Now that I was aware of his thoughts of me, I could feel exactly what Aiden meant when he said kissing me was like jumping off a cliff. It was burning and desperate, tentative and possessive, yearning and despairing - all wrapped up in one. He didn't hold me, but he kissed me back with all the soul of a man who was going to lose it.

I squeezed his hand once, and then plunged my dagger all the way to the hilt into him.

Aiden didn't even gasp, just blinked and swayed with the pain. "Tara," he whispered. "Thank you."

Then the light went out of his fiery eyes.

**A/N: Oooh, big shocker there? Sorry if I'm kinda demented or something. When I write, I let the keyboard take me wherever it wants to the wildest heights, and trust me, when I'm in this mood, neither music nor Mallomars could even lure me away till I'm finished. So I guess this development in Aiden's character is kind of late, right? I just realized I never got a chance to show it before, though, and I wanted it all to be a big special chapter in a tight climax.**

**I'll try to update again as soon as I can. Meanwhile, please review! Thanks, ~TOIMI**


	17. Chapter 17: I Am Shackled to a Bike Rack

**A/N: Okay, guys, sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoy the next installment!**

Chapter 17: The Long Story of Getting Shackled to a Bike Rack

The moment Aiden sank to the floor with my blade in his body, the air around me shimmered, and my ears were filled with a high keening sound like glass shattering and angels singing. I cried out when a shard buried itself in my skin, and flung out my right arm as a shield against the crashing mirrors. Then there was a blinding flash, and I was floating in a world of pure white.

For eternity I hung suspended there, holding my breath. Then a voice spoke inside my mind, a man's voice: "You have tainted your father's blade with the blood of my son. Go, take your party with you. Leave my sight at once. Do not think to befriend me in the future."

The voice of Prometheus faded, and I fell to earth with a painful crash.

T~T~T~T~T

"T! T, are you all right? Can you hear me? Answer me!"

I sucked in a breath sharply through my teeth and came fully awake with a jolt. Glass was sticking me in the back; I could smell the rusty scent of my own blood. Back on earth, my broken arm throbbed. My head was awkwardly cradled in someone's lap.

I opened my mouth and winced when my dry lips split. I blinked as my blurry vision cleared. "Jack?"

It was Jack. His face was bloodied and streaked, his hair lank and dirty, but through the grime on his cheeks I could faintly make out tracks of moisture. His eyes were fixed on me, full of fear and relief and joy all rolled up in one. He stroked the side of my face with his thumb. "It's me, T."

I managed a hoarse laugh. "It _is_ me, ye know. The real one this time."

He cracked a smile back at me. "What happened to you?"

I shrugged, and then cursed aloud at the pain with a hearty energy that announced to everyone else around that I was awake. "Nothin'."

"Nothing? Where's Aiden?"

I pressed my lips together. "He's...gone."

Jack just looked at me.

"We're free to go now, Jack," I whispered, reaching up with my right hand to push the hair back from his eyes. "You, me, Sky, Winnie, Dusty...Zac and Jasper...we're all free to go. No one will bother us again for as long as we live."

"Where did ye go, then?"

I swallowed. "It's called the Hall of Mirrors." I shook my head. "Please, don't ask. I don't want to hurt you. And I want is to just forget what happened there."

He looked at me, long and searching, and then nodded. Then he stood, gripping my uninjured side firmly, and pulled me bodily to my feet. Before I could protest, Jack had swept me up into his arms and was carrying me towards the door out of the throne room, where I could hear voices chattering.

"Put me down," I croaked aloud. "I can walk."

Jack offered me a familiar I-desperately-contend-that look. "I remember carrying you like this before, four years ago. Ye haven't grown much since then."

"Oh yes I have!" I cried indignantly. "Put me down, and I'll show you what I've got!"

Jack threw back his head and laughed. "Now you're awake!" But a moment later, he sobered. "Don't ever scare me again like that, T. I don't want to lose you. Not ever."

I swallowed and looked up at him. "I never want to lose you either, Jack. That's why I came."

"I know. I didn't know ye would. I never would have asked you to put your life on the line for me, T - as a leader or as a dear friend. But...thank you. Thank you with all my heart."

"Hey," I teased, "I didn't know the leader of the Black Hearts actually had a heart."

Jack scowled.

A few seconds after, he stepped across the threshhold of another room, much larger than the first, where to my immense surprise I could make out row after tidy row of pallets, nearly all of them occupied. The familiar figures of Winnie, Dusty, and Zac were circulating among the patients, while Sky leaned heavily against a wall to one side and muttered in sleepy conversation with Jasper beside her.

"What's this?" I said.

I felt Jack shrug. "It was Dusty's idea. Only two of the kids died, but the rest are just wounded. He thought we should at least help 'em heal afore leaving." Jack moved to the nearest fresh pallet by a window, where I could discern a dismal view of pines and snow, and set me down as gently as a newborn baby. He even winced when he accidentally jostled my broken limb. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't sweat it. I can handle this."

But Jack silently shook his head. While Winnie wandered over with wads of cotton and a mysterious bottle in hand, he pulled up a stool beside me and held my other hand, stroking the skin with his thumb. The contact sent a foreign fluttering sensation through me. He glanced over at my left side. "How's your arm?"

Despite myself, I grimaced. "Broken in a couple places, I bet."

Jack stood over me suddenly and probed the area with his right hand with a tenderness I'd almost never seen before. "Shoulder's only got a crack, but yer arm's bent wrong. It's got t' be set."

I barely suppressed a groan.

"Ye want Wynter or Zac to do it?"

"Hell...no." I glanced over at the redhead and her boyfriend making their way closer; Zac worked with frightening efficiency, while Wynter seemed to be feeding her patients all kinds suspicious-looking liquids.

"I can do it," Jack profferred tentatively as he followed my gaze. "Ye know I did Mikey's when he fell off the wall."

I bit my lip. After a long moment I whispered, "Okay."

Jack squeezed my hand and moved into position to set my arm, while I lay rigid and unmoving, braced for pain. Then our eyes met, and suddenly he stopped; I was lost in the mysterious depths of his jet black eyes, wondering what he was thinking. He sucked in his breath sharply as if it was a struggle just to breathe. When he spoke, his voice was strangely hoarse. "T...I never stopped thinking of you. Not for one moment that we were apart. I tried to escape, but they caught me both times. I even tried t' bribe several of 'em to get a message to you not to come. I wanted you to be safe. I can't bear to lose you, T. I..."

My breath caught. The confession had floored me in a way no one else could have done, not even Aiden.

Jack searched my expression, probably unsure of what he would find there. "T...remember the buttons night?"

How could I forget? That had been the night of our first kiss - and our only kiss. For days after that our relationship had been awkward; I'd loved the kiss with Jack and feared half the time I'd ask him to do it again, while he veered off with a visage that told me if he was around me another minute he _was_ bound to do it again. Then somehow we had found something like our old footing, back to best friends, each one concealing unrequited thoughts from the other.

I nodded.

"That was real, T. I don't know if you thought I was just doing it to comfort you, because th' truth is, I wasn't. It was more than that. I liked you from the start, T, and that's why I let you stay. And the more I watched you, the more I fell for you."

"Seems like a lot of that goin' around lately," I whispered.

His eyes searched me. "What?"

I shook my head. "Noth - _aargh_!"

Jack had yanked my entire lower arm back into place in one fluid motion. My strangled scream made a dozen heads whip around.

"Shh," Jack whispered, smoothing the sweaty strands of hair from my brow.

I groaned softly again, but this time the flaming throb in my limb had settled into a sullen ache. "Jack - Mavis - Avalon... You are one hell of a doctor."

He squeezed my hand and chuckled.

We were duly interrupted by Winnie's arrival. The redheaded girl had pulled her messy waves back from her face in that no-nonsense way of hers. She surveyed Jack's work with a critical eye. "I think I believe you now when you say you lived a rough life," she observed blandly.

Jack merely lifted an eyebrow at her.

Winnie moved forwards and was now dabbing at my cuts and open bruises with a cotton wad soaked in alcohol. "Dusty told me about your...er, inability to consume ambrosia or nectar," she explained with a shrug.

I nodded.

"Well, I _am_ a magician, and I brewed this healing potion some time ago, and it's worked on all the other Titan kids," Wynter went on. She held up the clear bottle for me to see the pale pink liquid inside. "Wanna try?"

"Sure. Wouldn't hurt."

She poured me a tiny portion into a paper cup she'd manifested out of the air and let Jack tilt my head so I could drink it. Immediately a warm, glowing sensation filled me inside, and I could already feel my more minor injuries sealing up. "Thanks," I breathed, and sank back down on the pillow.

"You next," said Winnie bossily to Jack.

Jack hesitated, his fingers tightening reflexively around mine. "I'm watching her."

"Jack, you're the one who's been starved and hurt for weeks out 'ere," I reminded him. "I'll be fine. I'll just sleep a little while. It's okay."

He seemed vastly reluctant, but at last he relented with a silent nod, pressed a kiss to the back of my hand, and left with Winnie to a neighbouring pallet. I noticed that he was limping; but before I could say anything else, Wynter's healing potion took effect, and I slipped into a deep slumber for a trip down Memory Lane.

T~T~T~T~T

_I was clobbered awake from my doze at the kitchen table by the clump of feet and the bang of the rickety door downstairs. It seemed too many of these interrupted naps were going around lately. I muttered under my breath._

_ Scraping back my chair, I yanked on my tattered red cardigan and stood in the doorway of the living room. Tom and Sam were just sinking down on the floor, jackets askew and faces ashen with fatigue. Black-haired Tom glanced up when he sensed me standing there._

_ "Where's Jack?" I asked._

_ Sam got up with a sigh and wandered past me into the kitchen with a shrug. "Boss said to go on ahead and split the booty. He's comin'."_

_ I was impatient. "Yeah, but where'd ye _leave_ him?"_

_ "Oh," said Tom, joining his brother Sam. "At th' crossroads. Y'know, where the Chargin' Falcon is."_

_ I cursed._

_ Sam whipped around with his face written all across with alarm. "Whatsa matter, T?"_

_ "Why the hell did you leave him there?" I shouted._

_ The two boys looked stunned, then simply gave each other nonplussed looks._

_ I grabbed Tom by the lapels of his jacket and shook him. "Ye know he doesn't go there! Why the bloody hell didn't ye two drag 'im home? Now he could be doing anything. He could be anywhere!"_

_ "W-what's wrong?" Sam repeated._

_ I didn't answer. With a sudden huff I shoved Tom away, and he collided into the table behind him with a clatter. Then without another word I pounded down the stairs and flew out the door into the star-burned snow._

_ The last time Jack had entered the Charging Falcon, it had been to deal undercover with Jewel, the leader of the Ring of Death, to get me back when I'd been taken prisoner. That had been when I was fourteen, and since then I had sharpened up and never let that happen again. But Jack hated this place because he had never been one for drinks or vice. He'd shared that secret with me one night when he had thought I was sleeping but I had really been awake listening to him._

_ I burst into the bar with a vengeance._

_ The bouncer at the threshhold sprang alert as my fist connected with the door, but I shot him a look that gave him pause. I brushed my tall frame past him and shouldered my way through the milling crowd._

_ A waitress decked out in a bizarre anime sailor girl outfit gave me a cat-eyed once-over. "Ooh, aggressive much?"_

_ I was possessed by an ineffable fury that no reason could explain. I seized a half-empty goblet of tequila from her tray and tossed it in her pretty false eyelashes. She gasped in outrage. "You just threw wine in my face?"_

_ "Where's Jack Avalon?"_

_ "You threw wine in my face!"_

_ "Where is Jack?" I roared._

_ "I'm reporting you!" she shrieked, and flounced back towards the bar._

_ I growled at her back in disgust, then turned to rake my eyes over the crowded tables. I hardly needed look much further: the commotion in the farthest shadowed corner had drawn all eyes and ears._

_ Jack was locked in a desperate death grip with the last person I'd expected to see in this lifetime again: Aiden._

_ I stalked up. "What - the - bloody - hell - is going on?"_

_ Jack's long dark hair was falling in disarray around his eyes. Keeping one hand clenched around the lapels of Aiden's jacket, he heaved a deep sigh and said, his voice calm and low, "T, what are ye doing here?"_

_ "What are _you_ doing here?"_

_ Aiden took advantage of Jack's distraction to shove him away, at which I snarled and lunged for him. He dodged out of the way, chuckling. "Mother hen's worried sick about her little Jack, eh?"_

_ When I bared my teeth at him, Jack barely restrained me with a hand on my arm. "T, please. Go home. I'll be there soon enough."_

_ I turned to him. "What's goin' on here? Ye never come to the Chargin' Falcon. Just that...that one time."_

_ Jack caught my eye and shook his head subtly, indicating that we had company. I glanced askance and saw that he was right: the entire table was filled with the menacing scowls of the members of the Ring of Death. "I've got business t' finish 'ere, T. I don't want you hurt. Just please go home."_

_ "What the hell are ye doing with _them_?"_

_ Jack slowly raised two hands and placed them firmly on my shoulders. He was just two centimeters taller, but the look of complete authority he gave me now made me actually take a step back. "Go. Home."_

_ "Not till I see what's goin' on."_

_ "For falcon's sake, T! Why did I ever make the stubborn one second-in-command?"_

_ I folded my arms over my chest. "Ask yerself. I'm staying."_

_ His face crumpled into a sigh of resignation; then Jack rearranged his visage into its normal neutral badass style before turning back to the Ring of Death. Aiden was regarding him with the manner of one mildly interested in a flea._

_ "We settle this 'ere and now," said Jack._

_ A slow, dark smile spread across Aiden's face. "Perfect. I _love_ an attentive audience."_

_ Jack flashed him a matching grin that would have taken my breath away in its pure beauty if only I hadn't already been struggling to breathe from fear and anticipation._

_ He jerked his head towards the door. "Outside, mate."_

_ Aiden sneered. "Fine with me, _mate_."_

_ I shot them both a warning glare. "Jack..."_

_ Jack turned to me, heaved one sigh of exasperation, and grabbing my wrist, dragged me out into the biting cold of the winter night air. He whipped out a pair of handcuffs I didn't know where in all tarnation he had gotten from and snapped it around my wrists, chaining me to the bike rack at the back door._

_ "JACK!" I shrieked._

_ Jack paused, as if almost guilty at what he was doing. Then he cocked a brow and his mouth quirked up in a smile. "Words'll never get you to obey me."_

_ My sputter of rage was cut short when I suddenly noticed the way he was looking at me. Intense. Almost...smoldering._

_ I caught sight of his Adam's apply bobbing as he swallowed. He lifted a hand, then abruptly patted my shoulder. "Sorry, T. I'll deal with you later."_

_ He turned about again to face his opponent. My eye widened when I saw the dagger glinting in Aiden's hand. Jack unsheathed his own weapon - a proudly glistening foot-long blade with an iron hilt covered in embossed Celtic characters - and simultaneously they began to circle each other._

_ I wished desperately I could bite something akin to my dirty fingernails - one of those "despicable" traits my mother had forever ratted on me for - but due to Jack's infinite stupidity, I was completely immobile in the appendicular area._

_ Jack was faithfully following the principle he had ground into my head four years ago: Never make the first attack. It just made perfect sense, really, and just about all the boys had picked it up rather quickly...except for Aiden. I could already see the steam billowing from his nostrils as he locked a baleful stare on Jack before lunging._

_ Jack ducked and thrust upwards to parry. The metal of their blades was a humanoid screech that rent my ears. The two struggled with muscles for a full minute, each one trying to throw off or disarm the other, but it ended in a draw in which they stumbled ingloriously away from each other. Aiden snarled and feinted, then stabbed at Jack's groin. Jack was not to be fooled: he was ready. He flipped his dagger once in perfect timing, deflecting the point of the knife with the hilt, and then rolled and caught his dagger again in his left hand. When Aiden pounced on his prone opponent, Jack took the opportunity to raise one foot and punch Aiden in the face repeatedly. Aiden roared and stumbled back through the snow, clutching his bruised eye._

_ Jack flipped to his feet in a crouch and wasted no time in serving Aiden a punch to the throat. Winded, Aiden fell back some more; then with an energy I've no doubt he got from the devil, he lashed out, catching Jack off guard and raking the tip of his dagger across his cheek from temple to chin._

_ I roared in outrage._

_ Jack blinked a few times to get his orientation back, then said as calmly to me as if he were strolling through an empty mall, "Stop strugglin', T. They're not comin' off till we're done."_

_ I could only watch in horror as his dark red blood dripped from his face down the front of his black jacket._

_ Aiden laughed and swiped away a trickle from his split lip. He approached Jack, knife held loosely in his hand. "Still concerned about others, eh? Well, ye know, I've got me a pretty good proposal for you. Join with me, and we can settle this right now, no hard feelings. Gone and done. What d'ye say?"_

_ "Drop dead, _Hawk_."_

_ Aiden's handsome face twisted into an ugly snarl. "Fine with me, scarecrow."_

_ "A scarecrow frightens you just as much as an eagle," Jack shot back, and this time attacked._

_ I was speechless as I witnessed the flurry of Jack's movements. Seemingly unhindered by his throbbing injury, he kicked and whirled and punched and slashed wherever he could, his muscles taut and flying precisely. Aiden attacked with rage. He and Jack ran at one another and caught each other by the shoulders, and for a long moment they grappled, each one trying to flip the other off. Aiden finally grabbed Jack's wrist, twisted, and tossed over backwards, but Jack recovered in midair to put his feet out and shove Aiden in the back. Jack dropped onto Aiden's shoulders even as they were both going down; together they tumbled to the ground._

_ "His left shoulder, Jack!" I called out. "He favours his left shoulder!"_

_ As they rolled over and over in the snow growling, I could just see Jack rolling his eyes as he yelled back, "Tell me somethin' I don't know! I've trained ye all for six years now!"_

_ "Fine!" I shot at him. "Just tryin' to help!"_

_ But Jack had not heard my jibe anymore. He was focused solely on Aiden, who had somehow gotten Jack pinned facedown with a knee in the back and was about to break his arm in half._

_ With an agility that knocked the breath out of me just to watch, Jack wiggled one leg out from under Aiden's weight and kicked Aiden forward from the back. Aiden yelped and fell forward, releasing Jack, and Jack leaped up shakily to back away a few feet and recover. He was wincing and limping, and his shoulder definitely looked like it had taken more damage than necessary._

_ "Jack, lemme - "_

_ Jack just shot me a look, set his jaw, and yanked his shoulder back into its socket with a loud POP._

_ "I'm gonna be sick," I informed him._

_ "Fine, just not on _this_ jacket. Cost me more than five burglaries t' get this un."_

_ I resisted the urge to serve him a kick in the back. Then my eyes widened. "Jack! Behind you!"_

_ My warning came less than a second too late. Before Jack could veer away, Aiden had come right at him from the side in a blunt tackle, brandishing his wicked knife. Jack grabbed blindly at Aiden's face, and again they went rolling over and over down in the snow till they both resembled frozen penguins with problematic egos._

_ It happened so fast then that I can never tell accurately what just happened. Somehow Aiden ended up on top of Jack and had the point of his dagger aimed at Jack's throat. Jack was struggling with all might and soul to stop Aiden's arm, but the blade was coming closer and closer._

_ "Jack!" I screamed, and wrenched bodily at the handcuffs. They snapped apart with a chilling screech, and I sprang into the fight. After a simple knee to the groin, Aiden went roaring and flailing back._

_ Jack was staring up at me dumbly as I struggled to right myself, since I'd ended up being the one on top of him. I noted irrelevantly that he looked good with his nose bleeding. "T, what did ye just do?"_

_ "I saved yer worthless life, Eagle. Now let's get out of 'ere!"_

_ Before he could protest - and before Aiden could lash out in another nasty back attack - I grabbed Jack and hauled him out of there._

_T~T~T~T~T_

_ "Ow...ow! Ow! Not the nose!"_

_ Jack groaned and futilely attempted to deflect the damp towel I was using to forcibly clean his broken nose. We were seated on the now muddy, slushy, blood-stained futon in the empty living room while the boys crashed upstairs. It was, of course, inconsiderately three o'clock in the morning._

_ "Well, I'm sorry if yer fine Roman nose is sufferin', but you seem to be forgetting that my wrists need some attention too." I held up my still manacled hands, though the chain between the cuffs had snapped cleanly in two._

_ "Yeah...about that," said Jack slowly. "What...exactly...happened back there?"_

_ "What d'ye mean what happened back there? Ye were goin' to die. I kicked Aiden and got you the hell out of there."_

_ "No no no, the part where ye broke out of the cuffs. How did ye do that?"_

_ "Er...I guess the same way I lifted you off the floor when ye tore my jacket."_

_ Jack breathed a swear word under his breath._

_ "Sorry," I amended quickly. "But...no, no, I've heard of it. It's called an _adrenaline rush_. There, does yer male ego feel all better now?"_

_ He growled deep in his throat. "Ye're avoiding the question."_

_ "There is no question. Now stop fidgetin' and lemme clean yer face!"_

_ "I don't need you t - ow!"_

_ I grabbed him firmly by the back of his neck and dabbed at the huge wet burgundy smear across the left side of his face. Cleaning the wound inevitably reminded me of the blood from Mikey's body, but I forced that thought away and focused. It turned out that the gash was long but not deep and would most likely heal over a year or two with only the faintest scar._

_ "All right, that's enough," Jack said brusquely. He grabbed the towel from me and then yanked my right hand forward palm up so he could see the lock on the cuff round me wrist. In a moment he had fished his infamous pick from his pocket and was making quick work of the manacles._

_ I suppressed a gasp when the right cuff fell away from my sore wrist. Casting me a look of concern, Jack gently brushed the wet towel over the bruised and chafed skin. "Okay there?"_

_ "I'm okay."_

_ "Good. Just...just don't do somethin' like that again, okay?"_

_ I whispered, "Okay. Okay...Jack?"_

_ "What?"_

_ "What...exactly...were you...fighting about...?"_

_ Jack heaved a deep sigh and didn't answer for a long moment. "Jewel."_

_ My mouth fell open. "Jewel? The...the girl he...?"_

_ "Yep."_

_ "But - why?" I burst out. "I know he disobeyed you, but he's the new leader o' the Ring of Death. Why're ye chasin' after him?"_

_ "Because Jewel was my sister."_

**A/N: *rubs hands craftily together* Well? Keep reading, mis amigos!**


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